Application of linear friction welding for joining ultrafine grained aluminium
Abstract Ultrafine grained (UFG) materials are of great potential in industry due to their enhanced mechanical strength and other promising features, such as ability to superplastic deformation or excellent corrosion resistance. Nevertheless, one of the main limitations lies in their low thermal stability, which leads to excessive grain growth at elevated temperature. It influences mainly further processes performed at high temperature, such as joining. It causes detrimental problems during conventional fusion welding, as significant grain growth is observed and therefore the advantages as a result of small average grain size disappear. Therefore, the idea of applying solid state joining pr…
Welding abilities of UFG metals
Ultrafine Grained (UFG) metals are characterized by an average grain size of <1 μm and mostly high angle grain boundaries. These materials exhibit exceptional improvements in strength, superplastic behaviour and in some cases enhanced biocompatibility. UFG metals barstock can be fabricated effectively by means of Severe Plastic Deformation (SPD) methods. However, the obtained welded joints with similar properties to the base of UFG material are crucial for the production of finished engineering components. Conventional welding methods based on local melting of the joined edges cannot be used due to the UFG microstructure degradation caused by the heat occurrence in the heat affected zone…