Small Radius Large Thickness High Strength Aluminum Alloy Cone Welding Breakthrough

On April 29, 2016, after eight months of continuous technical breakthroughs by Aerospace Engineering and Equipment Corporation, we successfully achieved the welding of small radius, high thickness aluminum alloy conical parts.

Small radius, high thickness and high strength aluminum alloy conical parts are key components of a domestic customer. Due to defects such as poor quality stability and low product qualification rate of traditional integral casting molding, the company's personnel and customers repeatedly communicated to determine the molding process of the product. Divided into: stage casting + friction stir welding. Among them, friction stir welding technology is the first application in this product and there is no mature application program. The application of friction stir welding in this product has the following difficulties:

1. "Keyless hole" welding of small-diameter annular seams; due to the inherent characteristics of the equipment, the distance of this pumping is short, and the requirements put forward on the process are high;

2. The rigidity of large-thickness welding is required; after repeated welding, under the premise of certain welding process parameters, the lateral thrust is large, and a strong rigid support is required;

3, welding procedures; welding procedures are different from the machining program, the program adds the welding process requirements.

The equipment company organized relevant personnel to carry out a comprehensive system development from various aspects such as equipment, procedures, tooling, and processes, and successfully developed the first heavy-duty, servo-recoverable servo A/C double-swing head friction stirrer, which successfully welded the cone. The reliability of the equipment was verified and the feasibility of the friction stir welding technology applied in the product was also verified. Inspection of the mechanical properties of conventional parallel specimens and X-ray film inspections of the products showed that the products were qualified for welding.