Realizing a Novel Friction Stir Processing-Enabled FWTPET Process for Strength Enhancement Using Firefly and PSO Methods

Senthil Kumaran S; Jayakumar Kaliappan; Kathiravan Srinivasan; Yuh-Chung Hu; Sanjeevikumar Padmanaban; Srinivasan N

doi:10.3390/ma13030728

Realizing a Novel Friction Stir Processing-Enabled FWTPET Process for Strength Enhancement Using Firefly and PSO Methods

Materials (Basel). 2020 Feb 5;13(3):728. doi: 10.3390/ma13030728.

Authors

Senthil Kumaran S¹, Jayakumar Kaliappan², Kathiravan Srinivasan³, Yuh-Chung Hu⁴, Sanjeevikumar Padmanaban⁵, Srinivasan N⁶

Affiliations

¹ Department of Manufacturing Engineering, School of Mechanical Engineering, Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore 632 014, Tamil Nadu, India.
² School of Computer Science and Engineering, Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore 632014, Tamil Nadu, India.
³ School of Information Technology and Engineering, Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT), Vellore 632 014, Tamil Nadu, India.
⁴ Department of Mechanical and Electromechanical Engineering, National ILan University, No. 1, Sec. 1, Shenlung Rd., ILan City 000260, ILan County, Taiwan.
⁵ Center for Bioenergy and Green Engineering, Department of Energy Technology, Aalborg University, 6700 Esbjerg, Denmark.
⁶ School of Mechanical Engineering, Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore 632 014, Tamil Nadu, India.

Abstract

The friction welding of tube to tube plate using an external tool (FWTPET) is widely deployed in several industrial applications, such as aerospace, automotive, and power plants. Moreover, for achieving a better tensile strength and hardness in the weld zone, the friction stir processing (FSP) technique was incorporated into the FWTPET process for joining aluminum alloys (AA6063 tube, AA6061 tube plate). Furthermore, it has to be noted that FWTPET was applied for joining the AA6063 tube to the AA6061 tube plate, and FSP was deployed for reinforcing the weld zone with carbon nanotube (CNT) and silicon nitride (Si₃N₄) particles, thereby attaining the desirable mechanical properties. Subsequently, the Taguchi L₂₅ orthogonal array was used for identifying the most influential input and output FWTPET + FSP process parameters. Furthermore, particle swarm optimization (PSO) and the firefly algorithm (FFA) were deployed for determining the optimized input and output FWTPET + FSP process parameters. The input process parameters include CNT, Si₃N_4, rotational tool speed, and depth. Furthermore, the tensile strength of the welded joint was considered as the output process parameter. The process parameters predicted by PSO and FFA were compared with the experimental values. It was witnessed that deviation between the predicted and experimental values was minimal. Moreover, it was found that FFA provided a superior tensile strength prediction than PSO.

Keywords: carbon nanotube (CNT); firefly algorithm (FFA); friction stir processing (FSP); friction welding of tube to tube plate using an external tool (FWTPET); particle swarm optimization (PSO).

Abstract

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