Numerical procedure for residual stresses prediction in friction stir welding

The prediction of residual stresses is a relevant and, under many points of view, still open issue for a proper welding process design. In the present paper a 3D FE model, with general validity for different joint configurations, was used to simulate the Friction Stir Welding (FSW) process of butt joints through a single block approach. The model is able to predict the residual stresses by considering thermal actions only, thanks to a new time efficient approach. A good agreement between calculated and experimentally measured data was found; the effectiveness of the presented numerical procedure was evaluated by comparing the calculation times of the proposed method with the ones of already known FE approaches. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.