14-11-2014, 02:49 PM
Abstracts: In recent years, composite materials have gained more and more attention in aerospace, automotive and structural applications. In many engineering applications high strength to weight ratio of materials are important while designing the components. Now a day to fulfil the above requirements conventional materials are replaced by composite materials. Silicon carbide as a reinforcing element and Aluminium as a matrix material found best alternative with its unique capacity of designing the materials to give required properties. In present work, stir casting method is use for uniform distribution of the reinforcement material in the matrix alloy. Friction stir welding (FSW) is a relatively new solid-state joining process. This joining technique is energy efficient, environment friendly, and versatile. In particular, it can be used to join high-strength aerospace aluminium alloys and other metallic alloys that are hard to weld by conventional fusion welding. Friction stir welding (FSW) is a modification of the traditional friction welding. It is a process patented by The Welding Institute in Cambridge, England in 1991. It is a mechanical process whereby solid-state welding is performed using heat generated from the friction of a rotating tool. Friction Stir Welding has become a major joining process in the aerospace, railway and ship building industries especially in the fabrication of aluminium alloys. FSW is generally applied to aluminium alloys. Nowadays FSW has been proven successful on numerous of alloys and materials, including high strength steels, stainless steel, titanium and MMCs also. The weld properties of friction stir welding remains as an area of interest with respect to the effect of tool geometry and process parameters. The rotational speed of the tools, the axial pressure and welding speed, weld time, and tool geometry are the principal variables that are controlled in order to obtain the weld strength characterized by the tensile strength, metallurgical behaviour, surface roughness, weld hardness and micro hardness.