Analysis of the microstructural characteristics of FSW connection of A517 (B) steel and its relation to mechanical properties and corrosion behavior

The aim of this study was to evaluate the mechanical properties and corrosion behavior of friction stir welding (FSW) connection of A517 (B) steel plate. Mechanical properties and corrosion behavior of weld zone were evaluated after reaching to optimum FSW microstructure with the lowest martensite phase. Thus, after the identifying phase microstructure by SEM and XRD analysis, mechanical properties were analyzed by micro-hardness and tensile test. Micro hardness data shows slight increases in stir zone (SZ) compared with the base metal (BM); although a reduction of about 17% in hardness of heat-affected zone (HAZ) was sensible. Reduction of hardness in the HAZ was appeared as drop by about 12 percent of the yield strength and 19 percent of ultimate strength compared with BM. SEM images from fracture surface of the tensile sample showed bi-modal distribution of large and small Dimples being sings of softness of HAZ .Comparing corrosion behavior in solution consist of 3.5 wt% of NaCl showed that there was no passive layers to prevent dissolution of the metal in the SZ and BM. while BM and SZ had fairly similar corrosion rates, Difference of 50 mV between corrosion potential of SZ and BM showed that in galvanic condition, corrosion resistance of BM could be lower than SZ.