The Effect of Temper Condition and Feeding Speed on the Additive Manufacturing of AA2011 Parts Using Friction Stir Deposition

Mohamed M Z Ahmed; Mohamed M El-Sayed Seleman; Ebtessam Elfishawy; Bandar Alzahrani; Kamel Touileb; Mohamed I A Habba

doi:10.3390/ma14216396

The Effect of Temper Condition and Feeding Speed on the Additive Manufacturing of AA2011 Parts Using Friction Stir Deposition

Materials (Basel). 2021 Oct 25;14(21):6396. doi: 10.3390/ma14216396.

Authors

Mohamed M Z Ahmed^{1

2}, Mohamed M El-Sayed Seleman², Ebtessam Elfishawy^{2

3}, Bandar Alzahrani¹, Kamel Touileb¹, Mohamed I A Habba⁴

Affiliations

¹ Mechanical Engineering Department, College of Engineering at Al-Kharj, Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University, Al Kharj 16273, Saudi Arabia.
² Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, Faculty of Petroleum and Mining Engineering, Suez University, Suez 43512, Egypt.
³ Mechanical Engineering Department, School of Science and Engineering, The American University in Cairo, 11835 New Cairo, Egypt.
⁴ Mechanical Department, Faculty of Technology & Education, Suez University, Suez 43518, Egypt.

Abstract

In the current study, solid-state additive manufacturing (SSAM) of two temper conditions AA2011 was successfully conducted using the friction stir deposition (FSD) process. The AA2011-T6 and AA2011-O consumable bars of 20 mm diameter were used as a feeding material against AA5083 substrate. The effect of the rotation rate and feeding speed of the consumable bars on the macrostructure, microstructure, and hardness of the friction stir deposited (FSD) materials were examined. The AA2011-T6 bars were deposited at a constant rotation rate of 1200 rpm and different feeding speeds of 3, 6, and 9 mm/min, whereas the AA2011-O bars were deposited at a constant rotation rate of 200 mm/min and varied feeding speeds of 1, 2, and 3 mm/min. The obtained microstructure was investigated using an optical microscope and scanning electron microscope equipped with EDS analysis to evaluate microstructural features. Hardness was also assessed as average values and maps. The results showed that this new technique succeeded in producing sound additive manufactured parts at all the applied processing parameters. The microstructures of the additive manufactured parts showed equiaxed refined grains compared to the coarse grain of the starting materials. The detected intermetallics in AA2011 alloy are mainly Al₂Cu and Al₇Cu₂Fe. The improvement in hardness of AA2011-O AMPs reached 163% of the starting material hardness at the applied feeding speed of 1 mm/min. The hardness mapping analysis reveals a homogeneous hardness profile along the building direction. Finally, it can be said that the temper conditions of the starting AA2011 materials govern the selection of the processing parameters in terms of rotation rate and feeding speed and affects the properties of the produced additive manufactured parts in terms of hardness and microstructural features.

Keywords: AA2011 aluminum alloy; AA2011-T6 and AA2011-O; friction stir deposition; hardness; intermetallics; microstructure; solid-state additive manufacturing.