Friction stir processing on carbon steel

Abstract

Friction stir processing of medium carbon steel samples has been carried out using a milling machine and tools made of cemented tungsten carbide. Samples have been machined from 40 and 40X steels. The tools have been made in the shape of 5×5×1.5 mm and 3×3×1.5 mm tetrahedrons. The microstructure of stirred zone has been obtained using the smaller tool and consists of fine recrystallized 2-3 μm grains, whereas the larger tool has produced the "onion-like" structures comprising hard quenched "white" 500-600 MPa layers with 300-350 MPa interlayers of bainite needles. The mean values of wear intensity obtained after measuring the wear scar width were 0.02 mm/m and 0.001 mm/m for nonprocessed and processed samples, respectively.