The welding of aluminium and its alloys Gene Mathers Cambridge England Published by Woodhead Publishing Limited, Abington Hall, Abington Cambridge CB1 6AH, England www.woodhead-publishing.com Published in North America by CRC Press LLC, 2000 Corporate Blvd,NW Boca Raton FL 33431, USA First published 2002, Woodhead Publishing Ltd and CRC Press LLC © 2002, Woodhead Publishing Ltd The author has asserted his moral rights. This book contains information obtained from authentic and highly regarded sources. Reprinted material is quoted with permission, and sources are indicated. Reasonable efforts have been made to publish reliable data and information, but the author and the publishers cannot assume responsibility for the validity of all materials. Neither the author nor the publishers, nor anyone else associated with this publication, shall be liable for any loss, damage or liability directly or indirectly caused or alleged to be caused by this book. 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Woodhead Publishing ISBN 1 85573 567 9 CRC Press ISBN 0-8493-1551-4 CRC Press order number: WP1551 Typeset by SNP Best-set Typesetter Ltd., Hong Kong Printed by TJ International, Padstow, Cornwall, England Preface Engineering is not an exact science and, of the many disciplines within engi- neering, welding is probably one of the most inexact – rather more of an art than a science. Much of the decision-making is based on experience and a ‘gut feel’ for what is or is not acceptable. When the difficulties of shop floor or site control are taken into account and the occasional vagaries of the welder and the sometimes inadequate knowledge of supervisory staff are added, the problems of the practising shop floor engineer can appear overwhelming. I hope that some of this uncertainty can be dispelled in this book, which is aimed at those engineers with little or no knowledge of metallurgy and perhaps only the briefest acquaintance with the welding processes. It does not purport to be a metallurgical or processes textbook and I make no apology for this. Having lectured fairly extensively on welding technology, I have come to realise that most engineers think of metals as being composed of a large number of small billiard balls held together by some form of glue. I have attempted to describe the metallur- gical aspects of the aluminium alloys in these terms. I have therefore kept the contents descriptive and qualitative and have avoided the use of mathematical expressions to describe the effects of welding. The book provides a basic understanding of the metallurgical principles involved in how alloys achieve their strength and how welding can affect these properties.I have included sections on parent metal storage and prepa- ration prior to welding and have also described the more frequently encoun- tered processes. There are recommendations on welding parameters that may be used as a starting point for the development of a viable welding pro- cedure. Also included are what I hope will be useful hints and tips to avoid some of the pitfalls of welding these sometimes problematic materials. I would like to thank my colleagues at TWI, particularly Bob Spiller, Derek Patten and Mike Gittos, for their help and encouragement during the writing of this book – encouragement that mostly took the form of ‘Haven’t you finished it yet?’. Well, here it is. Any errors, inaccuracies or omissions are mine and mine alone. Gene Mathers ix Contents Preface ix 1 Introduction to the welding of aluminium 1 1.1 Introduction 1 1.2 Characteristics of aluminium 4 1.3 Product forms 6 1.4 Welding: a few definitions 6 2 Welding metallurgy 10 2.1 Introduction 10 2.2 Strengthening mechanisms 10 2.3 Aluminium weldability problems 18 2.4 Strength loss due to welding 31 3 Material standards, designations and alloys 35 3.1 Designation criteria 35 3.2 Alloying elements 35 3.3 CEN designation system 36 3.4 Specific alloy metallurgy 40 3.5 Filler metal selection 46 4 Preparation for welding 51 4.1 Introduction 51 4.2 Storage and handling 51 4.3 Plasma-arc cutting 52 4.4 Laser beam cutting 58 4.5 Water jet cutting 63 4.6 Mechanical cutting 64 4.7 Cleaning and degreasing 66 v vi Contents 5 Welding design 69 5.1 Introduction 69 5.2 Access for welding 70 5.3 Welding speed 71 5.4 Welding position 72 5.5 Edge preparation and joint design 72 5.6 Distortion 84 5.7 Rectification of distortion 88 5.8 Fatigue strength of welded joints 89 6 TIG welding 97 6.1 Introduction 97 6.2 Process principles 97 6.3 Mechanised/automatic welding 114 6.4 TIG spot and plug welding 115 7 MIG welding 116 7.1 Introduction 116 7.2 Process principles 116 7.3 Welding consumables 130 7.4 Welding procedures and techniques 135 7.5 Mechanised and robotic welding 141 7.6 Mechanised electro-gas welding 143 7.7 MIG spot welding 144 8 Other welding processes 147 8.1 Introduction 147 8.2 Plasma-arc welding 147 8.3 Laser welding 150 8.4 Electron beam welding 155 8.5 Friction welding 160 9 Resistance welding processes 166 9.1 Introduction 166 9.2 Power sources 167 9.3 Surface condition and preparation 169 9.4 Spot welding 171 9.5 Seam welding 175 9.6 Flash butt welding 176 Contents vii 10 Welding procedure and welder approval 181 10.1 Introduction 181 10.2 Welding procedures 181 10.3 Welder approval 191 11 Weld defects and quality control 199 11.1 Introduction 199 11.2 Defects in arc welding 199 11.3 Non-destructive testing methods 205 Appendix A British and ISO standards related to welding and aluminium 216 Appendix B Physical, mechanical and chemical properties at 20°C 226 Appendix C Principal alloy designations: cast products 227 Appendix D Alloy designations: wrought products 228 Bibliography 230 Index 235 1 Introduction to the welding of aluminium 1.1 Introduction The existence of aluminium (Al) was postulated by Sir Humphrey Davy in the first decade of the nineteenth century and the metal was isolated in 1825 by Hans Christian Oersted. It remained as somewhat of a labora- tory curiosity for the next 30 years when some limited commercial pro- duction began, but it was not until 1886 that the extraction of aluminium from its ore, bauxite, became a truly viable industrial process. The method of extraction was invented simultaneously by Paul Heroult in France and Charles M. Hall in the USA and this basic process is still in use today. Because of its reactive nature aluminium is not found in the metallic state in nature but is present in the earth’s crust in the form of different compounds, of which there are several hundreds. The most important and prolific is bauxite. The extraction process consists of two separate stages, the first being the separation of aluminium oxide, Al2O3 (alumina), from the ore, the second the electrolytic reduction of the alumina at between 950°C to 1000°C in cryolite (Na3AlF6). This gives an aluminium, containing some 5–10% of impurities such as silicon (Si) and iron (Fe), which is then refined either by a further electrolytic process or by a zone-melting technique to give a metal with a purity approaching 99.9%. At the close of the twentieth century a large proportion of aluminium was obtained from recovered and remelted waste and scrap, this source alone supplying almost 2 million tonnes of aluminium alloys per annum in Europe (including the UK) alone. The resulting pure metal is relatively weak and as such is rarely used, particularly in constructional applications.To increase mechanical strength, the pure aluminium is generally alloyed with metals such as copper (Cu), manganese (Mn), magnesium (Mg), silicon (Si) and zinc (Zn). One of the first alloys to be produced was aluminium–copper. It was around 1910 that the phenomenon of age or precipitation hardening in this family of alloys was discovered, with many of these early age-hardening 1 2 The welding of aluminium and its alloys alloys finding a ready use in the fledgling aeronautical industry. Since that time a large range of alloys has been developed with strengths which can match that of good quality carbon steel but at a third of the weight.A major impetus to the development of aluminium alloys was provided by the two World Wars, particularly the Second World War when aluminium became the metal in aircraft structural members and skins. It was also in this period that a major advance in the fabrication of aluminium and its alloys came about with the development of the inert gas shielded welding processes of MIG (metal inert gas) and TIG (tungsten inert gas). This enabled high- strength welds to be made by arc welding processes without the need for aggressive fluxes.