WELD ANALYSIS OF AL-5083-O & AL-6061 T6 JOINED USING GTAW

Abstract

Newer automobile sector, rail-coach & shipbuilding industries aimed to design their vehicle to reduce the weight without compromising the strength and safety standards. One of the metals which comes in lights of metallurgist is aluminium due to its weight to strength ratio and its availability on earth. As the use of aluminium grows in industries new challenges arrives, one of them is joining of two different grades of aluminium alloy due to their wide range of alloys and high mechanical properties. The weld-analysis of AL-5083-O & AL-6061-T6 has been done at 9 samples or plates at different parameters. According to the design matrix of Taguchi L9 orthogonal array method. Effect of welding current, shielding gas-flow and filler material on the tensile properties of the weld joint has been investigated. Residual-stress analysis has been done on the sample at 5 different points on the welded-specimen; microstructure of the specimen has been obtained on the weld bead, heat-effected zone &base-metal to evaluate the effect of thermal cycle of GTAW and different welding process parameters on welding quality and grain structure of material. Micro-hardness value of Vickers indenter in the fusion zone, effected zone and base metal has been measured at the junction of weld bead to understand the change in mechanical property of the welded material.