Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx

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Materials Today: Proceedings

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Friction stir welding of commercially pure copper and 1050 aluminum

alloys
Sachindra Shankar ⇑, Somnath Chattopadhyaya
Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT(ISM), Dhanbad 826004, India

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: AA 1050 and commercially pure copper alloys were successfully fabricated using Friction stir welding
Received 5 April 2019 (FSW). The welds were obtained by using the different tool rotational speed of 1400 and 2000 rpm
Received in revised form 11 July 2019 and the traverse speed of 40 and 63 mm/min. Mechanical tests and FESEM tests were implemented to
Accepted 30 July 2019
inspect the joint strength and microstructural property. The highest joint strength of weld was 91%
Available online xxxx
of Al parent metal. The fine-grained microstructure was observed in the WN and a large amount of Cu
parent metal exists with different shapes in the elongated in weld nugget.
Keywords:
Ó 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Commercially pure copper alloy
1050 Al alloy
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 2nd International Conference on
FSW Computational and Experimental Methods in Mechanical Engineering.
Tensile strength
Micro-hardness

1. Introduction
FSW is a fabrication process which is suitable for the joining of
dissimilar materials, developed and patented by W.M. Thomas of
‘The Welding Institute’ [TWI, UK] in 1991. During the joining of
the two plates of same or different materials, a rotating non-
consumable tool probe is used which is driven between the joining
ends of the two plates and then is allowed to move along the plates
interface i.e. along the welding direction. Frictional heat is pro-
duced on the interfaces of two plates and then the sufficient pres-
sure is applied to the two joining plates with the help of tool
shoulder. The heat generated allows the metal to flow and mix
together without melting to create a strong weld joint. The weld
properties and weld conditions were greatly influenced by differ-
ent process parameters such as probe axes, tool geometry, feed
rate, tool position and rotational speed. These process parameters
were analyzed to produce high-quality welds. The joints produced
mainly consists of four regions, first is PM (Parent metal), material
region that has not been influenced by the heat in terms of
mechanical properties and microstructure and second is HAZ (Heat
Affected Zone) that lies near to the weld zone and has experienced
more heat which eventually modifies the mechanical properties
and the microstructure of that zone. However, in this region, no
plastic deformation takes place. The third is TMAZ where materials
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: sachindrashankar@gmail.com (S. Shankar).
are plasticized. Last is WN (Weld nugget), also known as weld stir
zone. This region is totally recrystallized region and during the
welding process, this region is occupied by the tool probe.
Copper and Aluminum have been extensively used as engineer-
ing structural materials, by reason of their excellent ductile prop-
erties, electrical and thermal conductivity, corrosion resistance
and less presence of residual stresses and distortions. These two
materials are commonly used in wide varieties of engineering
applications including railway, marine, automobile, and electric
power industries, aerospace [1]. FSW has many benefits (a) low
processing temperature (b) greater weld strength compared with
the fusion welding process (c) little or no porosity (d) no filler
materials (e) no solidification cracking (f) no welding gases or
fumes and improved corrosion resistance.
Till date, many research works have been accomplished in this
welding process. Xavier et al. performed the FSW of Cu and Al and
analyzed the weld zone properties with respect to the change in
the tool traverse speed. The results showed the zero defect in stir
zone, thin inter-metallic layer, fine Cu particles distribution in
the WN region results in improved tensile properties [2]. Sachindra
et al. used friction stir welding for joining the dissimilar thickness
Al-Cu alloys in the bus bar application [3]. Rao et al. investigated
the optimum FSW parameters for Cu using cylindrical pin with
thread on its external surface and taper threaded at the rotational
speed of 900 rpm. The results showed that cylindrical threaded
tool is mostly suited for welding [4]. S. Ma et al. determined the
influence on microstructure and corrosion properties accom-

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2019.07.719
2214-7853/Ó 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 2nd International Conference on Computational and Experimental Methods in Mechanical Engineering.

Please cite this article as: S. Shankar and S. Chattopadhyaya, Friction stir welding of commercially pure copper and 1050 aluminum alloys, Materials Today:
Proceedings, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2019.07.719
2 S. Shankar, S. Chattopadhyaya / Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx
plished by laser surface melting of Friction stir joined 2219Al alloy.
In this study, the corrosion resistance enhanced through laser sur-
face melting by improving microstructure and phase distribution
[5]. Ding et al. joined AA5754 Al alloy and coated Al-Si steel using
refill FSSW. The Al-Si coating and the intermetallic phase Al7Fe2Si
and Al5Fe2Si formed during welding played the key role in the dis-
similar welding and microstructure evolution which led to a very
high shear strength [6]. Kesharwani et al. analyzed the influence
of travel speed, rotational speed, shoulder diameter and pin geom-
etry on butt welded two dissimilar sheets of AA5754-H22 and
AA5052-H32 using FSW. They have used Taguchi grey based
approach to optimize the experiment and settle that with
1800 rpm rotational speed, travel speed of 50 mm/min, 20 mm tool
shoulder diameter and square geometry tool pin resulted in the
ultimate tensile strength of 175 MPa [7]. Dubey et al. observed
the microstructure, wear nature and hardness of FSWed Al-Cu
alloy. They have investigated that welded joint which was guided
to maximum heat transfer was harder in comparison to other
joints. They have also observed that alloy containing the greater
proportion of Cu exhibited better wear resistant property than that
containing less amount of Cu [8]. Zhang et al. executed compara-
tive study in which pure Cu and 1060 Al alloy were joined by Fric-
tion Stir Welding where Al is used as retreating side and Cu is
advancing side. The result of this study showed that the formation
of Intercalation structure in a metallurgical bonding of Cu/WN
areas promoted Al and Cu. Due to a high dislocation density; the
values of hardness in the weld nugget were greater than the base
metal [9]. Lee et al. studied the microstructure of dissimilar butt
joint that was produced under the ‘off-set’ situation i.e. the posi-
tion of tool plunge moved towards AZ31 from the AA6061-T6
and AZ31interface. This study showed that in stir zone, the fine-
grained microstructure, weaker or randomized plane orientation
of plane was observed and average recrystallized grains size was
investigated as 2.5–4.5 lm [10]. Kundu et al. used FSW to join
commercial pure Al and interstitial free steel. They observed that
in weld zone, the intermetallic compounds (Al3Fe) were formed
and its growth rate depend upon the tool rotational speed. The
micro-hardness of the interface was observed to be greater than
parent metal [11]. Franchim et al. analyzed the result by the FSW
of thin sheets of Al alloy AA2024-T. Tensile tests, SEM, Optical
microscopy were used to characterize the butt joints formed. This
study reported that without post-weld heat treatment, the
strength of weld zone is near about to the strength of the parent
metal and no defects are found in the resulting microstructure
[12]. Dorbane et al. observed that by taking AZ31B magnesium
alloy on the retreating side and Al 6061-T6 Al alloy on the advanc-
ing side of the weld, produces a good quality joint. Intermetallic
compounds (IMC) Mg2Al3 and Mg17Al12 were found in the weld
zone. They also concluded that micro-hardness values of Al parent
metal are higher than the magnesium base material in weld nugget
[13]. Azizieh et al. concluded that highest tensile strength can be
found in the pin position of the weld while welding of Al and mag-
nesium alloy [14]. Palanivel et al. performed the comparative study
on the welding of AA5083-H111 and AA6351-T6 Al alloys at differ-
ent welding speeds of 36, 63 and 90 mm/min and concluded that
the transverse speed of 63 mm/min produces better metallurgical
characteristics and ductile fibrous fracture [15]. Dehghani et al.
used the FSW process to join the mild steel to AA5186. They exam-
ined the effect of varying parameters on joint strength and IMC for-
Table 1
Compositions of AA1050 alloy.
Material Cu Al Fe
AA1050 0.05 Bal. 0.4
Please cite this article as: S. Shankar and S. Chattopadhyaya, Friction stir welding of commercially pure copper and 1050 aluminum alloys, Materials Today:
Proceedings, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2019.07.719
mations (Al6Fe and Al5Fe2). The results of this study showed that
by enhancing the welding speed, the tensile strength of weld joint
increases. They also noticed the reduction in IMC information at
higher welding speed which also showed higher joint strength
[16]. El-Sayed et al. used finite elemental analysis (FEA) to antici-
pate the temperature distribution of AA5083-O using FSW process.
They observed that the maximum temperature obtained by FEA is
matched the maximum temperature measured by infrared thermal
image camera with an error of 3.31% at 630 rpm and 1.22% at
400 rpm [17]. R Murugan et al. used ANSYS model analysis for
FSW process on bronze and copper plate and analysed the various
temperature distributions at various travel time and seen that the
temperature increases as travel time duration increases along the
weld line [18]. Shankar et al. investigated the different type of
defects and temperature induced during the FSW of aluminum
alloys [19]. Saw et al. examined the microstructure evolution of
friction surfaced different material [20].
The present study investigates the FSW of Cu alloy and AA1050
plates on a hmt made vertical milling machine (FN1U hmt). Weld-
ing was performed by H13 die steel with an offset of 2 mm on Al
side. From the literature study, it was concluded that only few
papers related to dissimilar welding of Cu alloy and 1050 Al alloy
plates has been accomplished with the help of friction stir welding.
The microstructural characteristics, joint strength test and micro-
hardness of the fabricated welded specimens were analyzed and
reported in this paper. The microstructure of weld nugget was
investigated by using FESEM. The optimum parameters have been
determined for obtaining the improved mechanical properties of
the weld. This type of joints is widely used in marine industries,
railways and various types of applications in industries.
Joining of dissimilar metal is a challenging task due to the dif-
ference in the mechanical and chemical property. Only few studies
have been focused on the joining of Al and Cu which is a major bus
bar material.
2. Experimental procedure
FSW of commercially pure Cu alloy and Al alloy 1050 plates
with thickness 6 mm has been performed. Table 1 represents the
chemical composition of the material to be weld. The plates having
dimension of 100 mm length and 85 mm width were cut from the
Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of Al- Cu FSW setup.
Mg Zn V Cr Si
0.05 0.05 0.05 0.01 0.25
 S. Shankar, S. Chattopadhyaya / Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx 3

large sheets of Cu and Al with the help of the wire-EDM machine. It was determined that the rotational speed of 1400 rpm and the
To remove oxide films and impurities, the surface of the welding welding speed of 63 mm/min were obtained as the optimum crite-
plates were cleaned with the help of acetone and then the plates rion. The parameters for welding was selected by considering the
were set for welding by the use of clamps. Fig. 1 shows the sche- weld pitch ratio. Weld pitch is the ratio of welding speed to the
matic diagram of FSW set up. During the process, AA1050 and Cu rotational speed which has a detrimental effect on the heat gener-
alloys were placed at the retreating side and the advancing side ation at the time of welding. Micro hardness testing of samples
of the non-consumable tool respectively. The probe was pene- were performed on an Economent VH-1MD machine. Hounsfield
trated along the welding line between the sheets. The entire oper- computerized UTM machine was used for the tensile testing of
ation was accomplished on the milling machine (vertical). The the samples.
samples were prepared at different parameters as shown in Table 2. A h13 steel made tool with cylindrical threaded pin of 6 mm
diameter and 5.8 mm length was used for the joining of the two
Table 2 dissimilar metals. The shoulder diameter was 28 mm. H13 steel
Different Experimental welding parameters.
has high strength at elevated temperature. It has low wear resis-
Specimen no. Rotational speed (rpm) Traverse speed (mm/min) tance as well as good thermal fatigue resistance. Therefore H13
1 1400 40 steel has been used as tool material At the time of joining. The
2 2000 40 threaded form tool was used because it is beneficial for improving
3 1400 63 tool performance and also reduces in-plane reaction forces on the
4 2000 63
tool i.e. forces in X and Y direction.
In this study, displacement control mode was used during the
formation of welds. Four samples of Al alloy and Cu alloy are
welded by FSW at distinct rotational speed and at different feed
rate using Vertical Milling Machine. The parameters of these four
welded sample are shown in Table 2.

3. Results and discussion

3.1. Tensile properties

Four friction stir joined specimens were taken for tensile test.
Samples for tensile testing were prepared as per the ASTM:
E8/E8M-16a standard. The value of tensile strength of each
specimen is taken for analysis. The result shows that the ultimate
tensile strength (UTS) in stir zone was close to the Al alloy and far
less than that of Cu alloy in each specimen due to inhomogeneous
microstructure. Due to high strain rate and heat generation at the
joint interface IMC layer were formed which increases brittleness
of the stir zone this might be the cause for decreasing the UTS at
Fig. 2. Variations of micro-hardness along the weld nugget zone. the joint interface as compared to parent material. Highest joint
tensile strength value was 91% of the Al base metal. Table 3
Table 3 indicates the joint strength of the welded samples.
Tensile strength of the samples.

Specimen no. Rotational speed Travel speed Tensile Strength 3.2. Micro-Hardness
(rpm) (mm/min) (MPa)
1 1400 40 74.754 The Vickers hardness of the weld region was measured from the
2 2000 40 86.581
bottom to top as represented in (Fig. 2). From the graph, it can be
3 1400 63 88.466
4 2000 63 66.448 observed that the hardness in the bottom region is greater as
compared to the middle and top of the weld nugget region which

(a) Aluminum copper interface (b) Mixed zone image

Fig. 3. (a) Aluminum copper interface. (b) Mixed zone image.

Please cite this article as: S. Shankar and S. Chattopadhyaya, Friction stir welding of commercially pure copper and 1050 aluminum alloys, Materials Today:
Proceedings, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2019.07.719
4 S. Shankar, S. Chattopadhyaya / Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx
represents the maximum fraction of copper is distributed along the
bottom area of the weld nugget part.
It was also observed that hardness increases drastically due to a
large amount of Cu particles present with different shapes in an
elongated form in weld nugget Moreover, high fluctuation in hard-
ness value was observed due to the formation of a large number of
IMC’s inside the weld zone.
3.3. Microstructure
The microstructure of WN was analyzed with the help of FESEM.
Fig. 3(a) and 3(b) indicating the microstructural images of weld
nugget area at different welding conditions of defect free samples.
It was determined that the distribution of Cu and Al in stir zone
was complicated and different type of microstructures was formed.
Fig. 3(a) Shows the interface of Cu and mixing zone, light area
shows the Cu and dark area shows the intermetallic compounds
(IMC’s) of mixing zone. Material mixing and interfacial zone has
a detrimental influence on the joint characterization of friction stir
welded Al-Cu sample. Material mixing results in the aluminum
metal matrix composite formation in the weld stir zone which fur-
ther improves the joint tensile strength whereas thick brittle inter-
metallic layer reduces the joint property.
4. Conclusions
1. Cu alloy and Al alloy were welded successfully by Friction Stir
Welding process.
2. No defect was observed on the tool speed of 1400 rpm and
cross-sectional traverse speed of 63 mm/min
3. Maximum joint strength achieved was approximately 91% of Al
parent metal in weld nugget by taking the 2 mm offset of the
tool on the Al side.
4. Weld nugget shows the higher average hardness value as com-
pared to the parent metal. The observed trend occurred because
of the high dislocation density during the plastic deformation.
Moreover, the formation of IMC’s results in the large fluctuation
in the hardness values of WN.
Please cite this article as: S. Shankar and S. Chattopadhyaya, Friction stir welding of commercially pure copper and 1050 aluminum alloys, Materials Today:
Proceedings, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2019.07.719
5. The distribution of Cu and Al in weld zone is complicated i.e.
large amount of Cu with different shapes and continuous strips
with elongated shapes take place which results in the change in
the microstructure inside the weld zone.
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