Thermal Stir Welds in Titanium

Abstract

Although conventional friction stir welding (FSW) has proven unsuccessful in joining thick sections of alpha and near-alpha titanium alloys, thermal stir welding, a variant of the FSW process in which an external heat source is used to preheat the workpiece, is demonstrated to be able to reliably join 12.3-mm-thick plates of CP titanium. This paper describes the microstructures and textures that develop in these thermal stir welds. The observed microstructure was used to reconstruct the high-temperature microstructure and texture present during the welding process and therefore reveal the genesis of the welding structures.