Innovative friction stir additive manufacturing of cast 2050 Al–Cu–Li aluminum alloy

Abstract

The process of friction stir welding (FSW) can be applied not only to the conventional sense of materials joining, but also as a method of solid-state processing and additive manufacturing with the use of lap joints. Two stacked lap weld builds with cast and wrought AA2050 were explored in this study for hardness and fracture behavior of the friction stir additive manufacturing (FSAM) process. It was also to be determined if cast feedstock material had potential to be a less expensive alternative to that of wrought processed feedstock. Testing revealed mechanical properties of the processed material to be notably different than those of the parent alloys—with inhomogeneous hardness distributions and fracture tests that indicated mechanical behavior relationships of crack propagation direction with respect to welding direction. However, cast material was not found to have a significant impact on the mechanical performance of friction stir additive manufacturing relative to use of wrought plate.