Optimization of Friction Stir Welded Dissimilar Aluminum Alloys EN AW-5083-H111 and EN AW-6082-T651 using Hybrid Taguchi-Based Grey Relation Analysis

Friction Stir Welding (FSW) which is a kind of solid state welding process used essentially for joining nonferrous metals and their alloys. Involving pollution free and no filler material are the advantages of FSW when compared to other welding methods. The present work was focused on the multi objective optimization of friction stir welded EN AW-6082-T651 and EN AW-5083-H111 aluminum alloys using Taguchi based Grey relational analysis (GRA) method under different parameters of shoulder diameter (SD, mm), tool rotation (TR, rpm) and welding speed (WS, mm/min) on tensile strength (TS, MPa), percent elongation (E, %) and joint efficiency (JE). Taguchi related experiments were performed using L27 Orthogonal Array. The grey relational analysis which relates between the FSW parameters and the responses applied to find the optimum condition. Additionally, the Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) approach was used to identify the most important factor and its impact on the multiple response. The results of the obtained tests were then verified using the confirmation test.