Investigation of Mechanical Properties of Friction Stir Spot Welded Light Metal Alloys

The use of light metals today is of great importance, for example in the automotive, aviation and aerospace industries, where energy consumption is minimized and thus the economy is being attempted. By using light metals, weight is reduced so that energy is saved. Aluminum and magnesium alloys are particularly used thanks to their lightweight. Vehicles in the automotive, aerospace and space industries are expected not only to have lightweight but also high static and dynamic strengths since they are exposed to static and dynamic cyclic loads. However, the structural components can quickly become fatigued and fail under cyclic load due to the notch factor of the joining zones. Compared to the fusion welding method, joining of material is realized mechanically below the melting point of the material in the friction stir spot welding (FSSW) method. Thus, the fatigue strength of the assembly is much higher than that of the fusion welding. In this study, light metal alloy of magnesium AZ31B and aluminum EN AW 2024 were joined with FSSW method and mechanical properties of this joins were also carried out.