Recent development in friction stir welding process: a review

The Friction stir welding (FSW) is recently presented so to join different materials without the melting process as a solid-state joining technique. A widely application for the FSW process is recently developed in automotive industries. To create the welded components by using the FSW, the plunged probe and shoulder as welding tools are used. The Finite Element Method (FEM) can be used so to simulate and analyze material flow during the FSW process. As a result, thermal and mechanical stresses on the workpiece and welding tool can be analyzed and decreased. Effects of the welding process parameters such as tool rotational speed, welding speed, tool tilt angle, depth of the welding tool, and tool shoulder diameter can be analyzed and optimized so to increase the efficiency of the production process. Material characteristics of welded parts such as hardness or grain size can be analyzed so to increase the quality of part production. Residual stress, strain, deformation, and estimations of the temperatures in the welding area can be predicted using the simulation of FSW in the FEM software. Heat generation, thermal, and thermomechanical analyses can also be implemented on the welded parts to analyze the distribution of temperature and strain in the heat-affected zone (HAZ). Moreover, welding operations of dissimilar metals can be analyzed using numerical simulation to increase the capabilities of the welding methodology in different industrial applications. In this article, a review of the FSW process is presented. As a result, the research filed can be moved forward by reviewing and analyzing recent achievements in the published papers.