Joining of Nylon 6 plate by friction stir welding process using threaded pin profile

• Nylon 6 was successfully joined by FSW process.
• The effect of FSW threaded pin profile was investigated for Nylon 6 plate joining.
• Defects were analyzed in both direction of spindle rotation FSW tool.
• Effects of FSW tool rotating directions with mechanical properties were studied.

Friction Stir Welding (FSW) is a solid-state process in joining thermoplastic materials. Polymers are engineering materials used for future technological development as the polymer processing and fabrication techniques have developed novel plastic products and components in major industries. Particularly Nylon 6 is one of the polymer materials with a lot of engineering applications and a study on the behavior of the joining properties of Nylon 6 by FSW is necessary at this stage. In this Paper, FSW process is applied to join a Nylon 6 plate of 10 mm thickness with specially designed left hand threaded tool pin profile. FSW of Nylon 6 was carried out with the tool rotational speed at 1000 rpm and welding feed at 10 mm/min. During FSW process, the effect of the joint formation by the rotation of the threaded pin profile in clockwise direction and counter clockwise direction was analyzed with a schematic diagram. The objective of this study is to find out the effect of the tool direction and to reduce the weld defects. It is found that the FSW joint fabricated with counter clockwise directed tool rotation produced defect free welds with better material properties.