ALJOIN Final Technical Report - Transport Research & Innovation ...

Contract N° G3RD-CT-2002-00829
Final Technical Report – draft 1
ALJOIN o 3mm (no oversizing of the weld – normal skin thickness used on
the Ladbroke Grove vehicles)
o 4.2mm (oversizing factor 1.4)
o 4.8mm (oversizing factor 1.6)
• 3 Welding Processes
o MIG welded demonstrators with 5356 welding wire
o LASER welded demonstrators
o FSW demonstrators
• Initiator location:
o 1: no initiator
o 4: initiator located in correspondence of the parent material and
the HAZ
For the final test programme, three specimens each with or without initiator were
prepared for each combination of conditions. For each combination of aluminium grade
and welding process, test would stop when all six samples (3 each with or without
initiator) fractured in the parent material.
Test results show that fracture occurs mostly in the weld zone of the joint without weld
oversizing. The fracture runs through the entire length of the weld without arrest. There
is hardly global plasticity deformation in the specimen. An example of welded
specimens after being tested are shown in Figure 31.
Figure 31: example of welded specimens after testing.
The performance of the three parent materials in the impact tests is assessed in terms of
force and energy. Comparison of the performance of the three materials in terms of
absorbed energy in shown in Figure 32, from which it could be observed that 6005AT6 is
considered to be stronger and more crashworthy than 6008T6 or 6008T7.
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