Friction stir welding of accumulative roll bonded single phase brass

Single phase brass strips with 2 mm thickness were severely deformed through 1 and 3 cycles of accumulative roll bonding process (ARB). ARB process effectively increased the hardness, yield strength, and the ultimate strength of the processed materials. The hardness of processed material increased from 95 HV in annealed material to 225 HV in 3 cycle ARBed material, and the yielding and ultimate strengths increased more than 5 and 2 times of the annealed sample, respectively. Friction stir welding (FSW) process was successfully conducted on the annealed and ARBed samples to investigate and compare the microstructure and the mechanical properties of the joints obtained in bead on plate configuration. Microstructural observations showed that very fine dynamically recrystallized grains developed in the stir zones (SZs) of all welded samples. Mechanical properties were evaluated by hardness and tensile testing. Hardness test for the ARBed and FS welded samples showed that the hardness value decreased by 110 Hv in the resultant SZs. Results of tensile testing revealed that yield and ultimate strength of the FS welded ARBed samples 1.3 and 1.8 times are greater than that of the annealed FS welded sample .