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Proceedings of The Fifteenth (2005) International Offshore and Polar Engineering Conference

Seoul, Korea, June 1924, 2005


Copyright 2005 by The International Society of Offshore and Polar Engineers
ISBN 1-880653-64-8 (Set); ISSN 1098-6189 (Set)

Development of FSW Process for Steel Assemble to Shipbuilding and Offshore Structure
Takeshi SHINODA, Hiroyuki TAKEGAMI,
Department of Material Science and Engineering, Nagoya University
Nagoya, JAPAN

Manabu HIRAKAWA and Hikaru YAMAMOTO


Technical Research Center, Hitachi Construction Machinery Co., Ltd
Tsuchiura, Ibaraki, JAPAN

parameters in order to determine the process conditions for FSW of


mild steel. The chemical composition and mechanical properties of the
base material is shown in Table 1. The yield stress was 302 MPa and
the tensile strength 465 MPa. Figure 1 shows the shapes of the work
piece and the tool. The size of the work piece is 300 mm long, 280 mm
wide and 12 mm thick. There are four restraint points and three tack
welding points. The welding tools were made of a tungsten-based
material with high strength at high temperatures. The tools had a
shoulder of 25 mm diameter and a tapered rod with tip diameter of 3
mm.

ABSTRACT
To increase the use of FSW, we are developing processes applicable to
steel assembles for shipbuilding and offshore structure. The welding
process was optimized using a combination of operating parameters
and tool geometries. In order to obtain complete penetration, two-pass
welding of butt joints was carried out from both sides of 12 mm thick
mild steel plates. We investigated the mechanical properties of these
FSW joints. The hardened areas were observed in welded metal at the
butt joint. Tensile strength tests resulted in the base material being
broken when the welding was performed on both sides using optimum
parameters.

Table 1. Mechanical properties and


chemical compositions of base metal
Tensile Properties
Chemical Compositions
Yield Tensile
Elongation
C
Si
Mn
P
S
Stress Stress
2
N/mm
%
mass%
302
465
29
0.20
0.11 0.63 0.019 0.010

KEY WORDS: FSW; mild steel; mechanical properties; tensile


strength;

INTRODUCTION
Recently friction stir welding (FSW) has been applied in several areas
such as railroad vehicles, airplanes and cars. While these applications
have been well accepted, commercial application is limited to lower
temperature materials such as aluminum alloys. Also in the area of
shipbuilding and offshore structure, FSW is being applied to only the
portion of the high-speed passenger ship made of aluminum alloy.

Restraint Points

300

12

25

280

Weld Line

Because of this expanding application, FSW is emerging as a viable


alternative to the conventional fusion welding processes because of a
number of advantages. These advantages, such as low distortion, no
fume, no spatter, ease of automation, etc. also can be expected for steel
joints. At the same time, it should be noted that especially because of
restrictions on the tool quality of the material, it is difficult to apply
FSW to high temperature metals.

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Tack Welding

Figure 1. The shapes of the work piece and the tool


Welding conditions for this experiment are shown in Table 2. The tool
was tilted at 3.0 degree to the vertical, and the welding speed was fixed
to 1.0 mm/sec. The tool rotating speed was varied from 750 to 1500
rpm. In order to obtain a complete penetration, two-pass welding of
butt joints was carried out from both sides of the plate. Figure 2 shows
the concept of the welding process in this experiment. In order to study
the variation of joint properties with weld direction, we prepared two
types of weld joints. Joint (a) was welded from the front surface and

In this study basic welding experiments were carried out using mild
steel where it is comparatively easy to apply FSW. After welding, the
mechanical properties of the weld joints were investigated.

EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE
We performed a preliminary study on tool shapes and welding

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