Materials Science and Engineering A 431 (2006) 114–117

Microstructure and properties of friction stir butt-welded

AZ31 magnesium alloy
Wang Xunhong a,∗ , Wang Kuaishe a,b
a Department of Metallurgy Engineering, Xi’an University of Architecture and Technology, Xi’an, Shaanxi 710055, China
b State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi’an JiaoTong University, Xi’an, Shaanxi 710048, China
Received 15 March 2006; received in revised form 18 May 2006; accepted 23 May 2006

Abstract
Friction stir welding (FSW) is a relatively new joining technique particularly for magnesium and aluminum alloys that are difficult to fusion
weld. In this paper, an excellent friction stir weld of AZ31 magnesium alloy was obtained at proper parameter. In the friction stir zone (FSZ), the
microstructure of the base material (BM) is replaced by fine grains and small particles of intermetallic compounds. The average microhardness of
the friction stir zone is higher than that of the base material. The maximum tensile strength of joint can reach 93% that of the base material. And
the failure locations are almost at the heating affected zone.
© 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Friction stir welding; Magnesium alloys; Microstructure; Grain refinement; Mechanical properties

1. Introduction the microstructure changes and mechanical properties of FSW

welded Mg alloy have not rigorously studied. The present author
Friction stir welding (FSW) is a solid-state joining process examined mechanical properties, such as hardness and tensile
that was invented by The Welding Institute, UK, in 1991 [1]. properties in defect-free FSW welded AZ31 Mg alloy to evaluate
The technique is a variant of the friction welding processes, the effects of the FSW parameter on the microstructure changes
but utilizes a rotating tool with a shoulder and a profiled probe and mechanical properties [5–9].
that is plunged into the work pieces and traversed along the
weld centerline. The motion of the tool generates frictional heat
2. Experimental procedures
within the work pieces, extruding the softened plasticized mate-
rial around it and forging the same in place so as to form a
The plate of AZ31 magnesium alloy was friction stir
solid-state seamless joint. No melting takes place in the process,
welded. Friction stir welded plates with nominal composition
thus keeping the temperatures relatively low and producing good
(3.0–4.0)Al–(0.2–0.8)Zn–(0.15–0.5)Mn remaining Mg. Nomi-
quality welds with significantly lower residual stresses [2]. The
nal dimensions of the plates were 250 mm (length) × 250 mm
biggest advantage of the method, however, is its capability to
(width) × 4 mm (thick). The tensile strength of base material is
weld light structural materials like certain aluminum alloys and
275 MPa.
magnesium alloy that used to be considered unweldable or dif-
Tool of friction stir welding was made on CNC lathe from
ficult to weld by conventional fusion welding techniques [3].
65 Mn steel, varying welding parameters such as tool rotation
Magnesium alloys have many attractive properties, such as
speed and travel speed was used in this investigation. Rotation
low density and high specific strength. It is predicted that
speed was 375–2250 rpm, and travel speed was 20–375 mm/min.
the application of magnesium alloys will grow rapidly in the
The probe diameter of the tool measured 4 mm and the shoulder
near future; Park et al. [4] discussed the microstructural evolu-
12 mm. The penetration depth was adapted to fully penetrated
tion of Mg alloy AZ91D during FSW. However, the effects of
butt joint in a material of 4 mm thickness.
FSW parameters, especially travel speed and rotation speed on
Microstructural examination was carried out on cross sec-
tions perpendicular to the welding direction. After being
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 29 8186 5594. mechanically ground and polished, the specimens were etched
E-mail address: honghong1981312@[Link] (W. Xunhong). in a solution of 5 g picric acid + 5 ml acetic acid + 20 ml

0921-5093/$ – see front matter © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/[Link].2006.05.128
 W. Xunhong, W. Kuaishe / Materials Science and Engineering A 431 (2006) 114–117 115

water + 150 ml ethanol. Microhardness profiles were measured

on the specimen. Tensile test and SEM scanning on fracture
surface of friction stir weld in a tensile test were carried out.

3. Results and discussion

3.1. Macrostructure and microstructure of friction stir weld

Fig. 1 shows the macrostructure of the cross section in friction Fig. 1. Cross section of friction stir weld in AZ31 magnesium alloy.
stir weld at a rotation speed 1200 rpm, a travel speed 90 mm/min
and a welding pressure 150 N. The width of the friction stir zone The microstructure of FSZ is greatly refined due to dynamic
(FSZ) of the experimental material was about 4 mm, equal to the recrystallization. As going from base metal to welding bound-
diameter of the pin. Fig. 2 shows the optical microstructure of ary part and the central part of welding, crystal grain becomes
the FSW welded Mg alloy at rotation speed 1500 rpm, travel small. Besides, FSZ is a thermomechanically affected zone
speed 90 mm/min and a 150 N welding pressure. In addition, (TMAZ) in which magnesium grains are severely deformed.
the tool advance vector in line with tangent vector of a shoulder The microstructure of BM, which is shown in Fig. 2(a), is mainly
fringe calls advancing side (AS), and the contrary vector calls composed of granular phase of magnesium solid solution grains.
retreating side (RS). The macrostructure of the cross section in Some tiny eutectic zones, which are shown by arrows in Fig. 2(a),
retreating side and advancing side is different, which is relative could also be seen in the microstructure. A typical microstructure
the flow field of friction stir welds. The tunnel defect usually of TMAZ is shown in Fig. 2(b). It can be seen that magnesium
can be seen near the RS zone. grains in TMAZ show an elongated shape due to plastic defor-

Fig. 2. SEM images showing the microstructures of cross sections of: (a) BM; (b) TMAZ; (c) FSZ; (d) TMAZ/FSZ interface.
116 W. Xunhong, W. Kuaishe / Materials Science and Engineering A 431 (2006) 114–117

mation during FSW. The large eutectic zones were arranged same rotation speed 1500 rpm. It could be found that hardness
along grain boundaries (shown by arrows). Fig. 2(c) shows the value of FSZ is higher than that of BM. There are two main rea-
microstructure of FSZ, which is characterized by the fine grains. sons for the improved hardness of FSZ. Firstly, since the grain
Carefully examining the microstructure of FSZ, some narrow size of FSZ is much finer than that of BM, grain refinement
bands of particles could be seen, indicating material flow pat- plays an important role in material strengthening. According to
terns. Fig. 2(d) shows the interface between TMAZ and FSZ. It the Hall–Petch equation, hardness increases as the grain size
could be observed that in TMAZ, the deformation of the grains decreases. Secondly, the small particles of intermetallic com-
increased with decreasing distance to FSZ. Moreover, the net- pounds are also a benefit to hardness improvement, according
work structure of the compound phase was broken into particles to the Orowan hardening mechanism.
near the interface while it remained continuous far away from It can be known that microhardness in the weld zone was
the interface. almost same with the base material form the value. It should be
In this investigation, a relatively fine magnesium grain struc- noticed that the microhardness of weld center was little lower
ture is produced by FSW. After FSW, the microstructures of FSZ than base material and the maximum value was all off the cen-
consist almost entirely of dynamic recrystallization magnesium ter about 1–1.5 mm. It can be known that the hardness of FSW
grains and intermetallic compounds tend to disappear due to welded AZ31 was considered with the grain size distribution in
dissolution at elevated temperature [10]. the weld zone. There is a considerably softened region whose
According to the Mg–Al binary phase diagram, Mg17 Al12 total range is 5 mm and appears near the heat affected zone
intermetallic compounds in AZ31 will dissolve into the magne- (HAZ) located 2–3 mm away from the weld center. The elon-
sium matrix completely when the heating temperature is higher gated and deformed grain probably causes the softness. And the
than a certain value. Therefore, the peak temperature of FSZ in reason causing the dissymmetrically softened region is that the
this study is high enough for Mg17 Al12 to dissolve into the mag- different transformation between the advancing side and retreat-
nesium matrix. It is well recognized that second phase particles ing side. And the material flow was unsteady around the welding
will influence the stress and strain distribution during plastic pin. On the advancing side, the microstructure was compact and
deformation, and thus particles will strongly affect the recrys- the transmutation grain had a great strain and higher energy of
tallization process. As to the present material, the behavior of distortion. The work hardening was more notable than retreating
second phases is much more complicated since their size and in the advancing side. The value of microhardness is growing
distribution will change during FSW. During FSW process, mag- with the increasing the travel speed.
nesium grains will plastically deform with rotation of the tool,
but the second phase, which is a brittle phase, is hard to deform. 3.3. Mechanical properties of friction stir welds
This causes stress concentration on the second phase. When
applied stress is higher than the fracture strength of the second The samples were carefully machined with coolant to mini-
phase, fracture takes place and large second phases change into mize heating. Tensile test samples were tested at room tempera-
smaller ones gradually. ture, with the weld transverse to welding direction. During test,
most specimens failed at heat affected zone. Fig. 4 shows the
3.2. Hardness tensile results of the AZ31 Mg alloy welded at same rotation
speed and welding pressure. It can be concluded that the higher
Fig. 3 shows the Vickers microhardness profiles measured travel speed, the larger tensile strength of the joint in certain
along the mid-thickness line of the cross section. The Vickers extension. When travel speed was 90 mm/min, the joint strength
test was done with 8-second at 100 g load and a 1 mm step. The was close to the base material. But when the travel speed passed
three ranges are travel speed of 90, 75 and 37.5 mm/min at the a fixed value (90 mm/min), the joint strength dropped as upping

Fig. 3. Microhardness distribution in the same rotation speed of 1500 rpm. Fig. 4. Tensile strength of friction stir weld.
 W. Xunhong, W. Kuaishe / Materials Science and Engineering A 431 (2006) 114–117 117

2. The weld zone was divided into three regions (weld nugget,
thermomechanically affected zone and heat affected zone)
based on the microstructure; the weld nugget had fine and
equiaxed grains due to dynamic recrystallization; the HAZ
zone had a lower microhardness than base material. Com-
pared with the base material, magnesium grains in FSZ were
greatly refined due to dynamic recrystallization. In FSZ,
the average grain size of the present alloy was finer than
most of the FSW magnesium alloys structures reported pre-
viously. Microhardness of FSZ was higher than that of BM.
The thermally stable intermetallic compounds in the present
alloy played an important role in microstructural evolution
by influencing the dynamic recrystallization process during
FSW.
3. When process parameter was proper, the tensile strength
Fig. 5. SEM of friction stir weld exhibiting ductile fracture in a tensile test. of the FSW welded AZ31 plate could get 93% that of
the base material at rotation speed: 1500 rpm, travel speed:
the travel speed. It can be known that the mechanical property 90 mm/min, welding pressure: 150 N.
could be close to base material strength when joint welded in
the proper parameter (rotation speed: 1500 rpm, travel speed: References
90 mm/min, welding pressure: 150 N). The main reason caused
that should be the grain refinement. The value of tensile results [1] W.M. Thomas, International Patent Application No. PCT/GB92/02203.;
is growing with the increase in the rotation speed (Fig. 4). W.M. Thomas, GB Patent Application No. 9125978.8, 6 (1991).;
Fig. 5 showed the SEM of friction stir weld exhibiting ductile W.M. Thomas, U.S. Patent No. 5,460,317.
fracture in a tensile test. The dimples are traces of the microvoids [2] J.H. Ouyang, R. Kovacevic, J. Mater. Eng. Perform. 11 (2002) 51.
[3] L.I. Ying, E.A. Trillo, L.E. Murr, J. Mater. Sci. Lett. 19 (2000) 1047.
produced during fracture. Normally, these microvoids round, or [4] S.H.C. Park, Y.S. Sato, H. Kokawa, Scripta Mater. 49 (2003) 161–166.
equiaxed, when a normal tensile stress produces the fracture. [5] Z.Y. Ma, R.S. Mishra, M.W. Mahoney, Scripta Mater. 50 (2004)
However, on the shear lip, the dimple are oval-shaped, or elon- 931–935.
gated, with the ovals pointing toward the origin of the fracture. [6] S.R. Sharma, Z.Y. Ma, R.S. Mishra, Scripta Mater. 51 (2004) 237–241.
[7] S.G. Lim, S.S. Kim, C.G. Lee, S.J. Kim, Metall. Mater. Trans. A 35A
(2004) 2837–2843.
4. Conclusions [8] W.B. Lee, Y.M. Yeon, S.B. Jung, Scripta Mater. 49 (2003) 423–428.
[9] K. Nakata, Y.G. Kim, M. Ushio, T. Hashimoto, S. Jyogan, ISIJ Int. 40
1. FSW welded AZ31 Mg alloy joint with excellent appearance (2000) 15–19.
and no distortion can be obtained when the process parameter [10] Zhang Datong, Mayumi Suzuki, Kouichi Maruyama, Scripta Mater. 52
was proper. (2005) 899–903.