Numerical procedure for residual stresses prediction in friction stir welding

The prediction of residual stresses is a relevant and, under many points of view, still open issue for a proper welding process design. In the present paper a 3D FE model, with general validity for different joint configurations, was used to simulate the Friction Stir Welding (FSW) process of butt joints through a single block approach. The model is able to predict the residual stresses by considering thermal actions only, thanks to a new time efficient approach. A good agreement between calculated and experimentally measured data was found; the effectiveness of the presented numerical procedure was evaluated by comparing the calculation times of the proposed method with the ones of already known FE approaches.