An analysis of boundary condition effects on the thermomechanical modeling of the FSW process.

The aim of the present work is to study the influence of thermal boundary conditions on the simulation of friction stir welding process 'FSW'. Generally, dimensions of the workpieces to be welded are very large and a very small zone surrounding the welding tool is modeled for the thermomechanical study of the process. This area, named box, should be small enough to reduce the computation time and large enough to minimize effects of boundary conditions. It is well known that during welding, the mixing zone is closed arround the tool; it is easily identified by analyzing the velocity field which is complex in contact interface with the tool and which tends rapidly to the tool traverse speed far from the tool. In the thermal analysis, the boundary conditions are not obvious since they depend on the welding parameters, on the workpiece dimensions and on its vicinity. We propose in this study a numerical strategy for determining the thermal boundary conditions on the box. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]