The present invention relates to a method for welding metals.
There are variations of methods for welding metals. Friction stir welding (FSW) method is one of them, disclosed in Patent Document 1 (Japanese Patent No. 2712838) and Patent Document 2 (Japanese Patent No. 2792233). The friction stir welding method welds two metallic members to be welded by butting each edge thereof, and by inserting a pin formed at front end of a rotary tool in between the butted edges, and then by moving the pin along the longitudinal direction of the edges while rotating the rotary tool.
The pin of the rotary tool used for the friction stir welding method has thread grooves on the side face of the pin. For example, FIGS. 1, 2, 12, and 13 of the Patent Document 1 are merely schematic drawings so that they give no detail of the thread grooves on the pin. Actually, however, as shown in FIG. 2 of Patent Document 2, the thread grooves are formed on the side face of the pin of the rotary tool. The thread grooves are formed aiming to stir the metal which shows plasticity by friction, thus to flow along the longitudinal direction of the pin, thereby improving the welding strength.
The rotary tool having thread grooves on the pin, however, likely wears the thread peaks, thus that type of rotary tool has a drawback of short life. Particularly when the friction stir welding is applied to metallic members made of hard metals or when the friction stir welding is given over a long welding length, the tendency becomes significant. In addition, the working to form thread grooves on the pin of the rotary tool is troublesome, which leads to high production cost of the rotary tool.
In this regard, the present invention provides a method for welding metals, which improves the life of rotary tool and which lightens the load to troublesome manufacture of rotary tool and reduces the manufacturing cost. In particular, the present invention provides a welding method excellent for welding stainless steels.
The present invention contains the first step of (a) butting two members made of stainless steel at each side edge thereof, and the second step of (b) inserting a pin in a right-cylindrical shape formed at the front end of a rod-shaped rotary tool between the respective side edges of the two members, thereby moving the pin along the longitudinal direction of the edges while rotating the rotary tool, and has a characteristic that (c) the rotary tool with the pin contains Si3N4.
According to the present invention, there is formed no thread groove, which is easily worn, on the pin, thus the life of the rotary tool is prolonged. In addition, since there is no need of forming thread groove on the pin, the manufacturing cost of the rotary tool decreases.
The term “right-cylindrical shape” referred to herein signifies a cylindrical shape without thread on the side face of the cylinder, or on the cylinder surface. The “right-cylindrical shape” includes a cylindrical shape having the side face thereof formed by straight line generatrices perpendicular to the bottom face. The pin of the “right-cylindrical shape” includes the one that has R between the bottom face and the side face at top of the pin. The pin in a “right-cylindrical shape” also includes the one in which the bottom face at top of the pin is in R shape.
Note that, the pin of the rotary tool may be a pin having side face formed by straight line generatrices. The term “pin having side face formed by straight line generatrices” signifies a pin having, for example, cylindrical, conical, or truncated cone shape.
The embodiment of the present invention is described below referring to the drawings.
The method for welding metals relating to the embodiment is the method for welding stainless steels based on the friction stir welding method. As shown in
The related art is the friction stir welding method which uses a rotary tool with a pin in a polygonal prism shape or with a pin having thread grooves thereon, made of ceramics or high melting point metal such as W, thus to weld stainless steel materials. To the contrary, the method for welding metals according to the embodiment differs from the conventional friction stir welding method in using the rotary tool 10 shown in
The rotary tool 10 is structured by a wide shoulder 12 and a thin pin 11 which is formed at the front end of the shoulder 12 and which is inserted between the edges of the respective metallic members. The pin 11 is in a right-cylindrical shape. The side face of the pin 11 is in a smooth curved face, and has no thread groove thereon. Here, the shoulder 12 is in a cylindrical shape having larger diameter than that of the pin 11, and extends in the axial direction of the pin 11. The pin 11 is formed at the front end of the shoulder 12, or at an end face of the shoulder 12.
The inventors of the present invention found that also the method for welding metals using the rotary tool with a pin having no thread groove thereon, according to the embodiment, can attain a welding strength at the welded part equal to or higher than that attained in the related art. Here, the term “welded part” referred to herein signifies the part in the vicinity of the welding line on the metallic members after welding.
Since the pin used in the welding method according to the embodiment has no thread groove thereon, there is no fear of wearing the thread peaks. Consequently, the pin life prolongs. Furthermore, since there is no need of forming thread grooves on the pin, the work for manufacturing the rotary tool becomes easy. In addition, the number of steps for manufacturing the rotary tool decreases, thus the rotary tool becomes inexpensive.
A presumable reason for the welding method of the embodiment to attain welding strength equivalent to that attained by the conventional methods is that, without providing the thread groove on the pin, the plastic flow of the metal along the rotational direction of the pin becomes larger than the plastic flow thereof along the longitudinal direction of the pin, which increases the welding strength. The conventional understanding is that the thread grooves on the pin enhance the stirring of metal. Actually, however, a pin in a right-cylindrical shape and having smooth side face such as the pin in the embodiment might rather enhances the stirring of the metal.
The rotary tool 10 shown in
Further, as shown in
The experimental results obtained by the welding method of the embodiment are described below.
To investigate the relation between the shape of the rotary tool and the welding strength at the welded part of the stainless steels, there was given the welding of SUS304 material specified in JIS G 4305 and SUS301L-DLT material specified by JIS E 4049 using the method illustrated in
The rotary tool 10 shown in
The rotary tool 10 shown in
The rotary tool 10 shown in
The rotary tools given in
The good welded part of SUS304 materials obtained under the condition of 300 mm/min or smaller welding speed and 0.5 or smaller rotational pitch comes from hardly-generating defects at the welded part. That is, under that welding condition, the heat entering the metallic members (SUS304 materials) is large, and the plastic flow of the metal material is sufficient so that the good welding is attained. It is known that the heat entering a metal is proportional to the rotational speed of the rotary tool and the cube of the shoulder diameter of the rotary tool, while inversely proportional to the welding speed. Considering the known relation, when the SUS304 materials are welded together using a rotary tool with a pin having a top in a conical shape, it is expected to obtain almost good welding strength at the welded part of SUS304 materials if only the value of {(the rotational speed of the rotary tool [rpm]×the shoulder diameter [mm]3)/the moving speed of the rotary tool [mm/min]/the plate thickness [mm]} is 4.5×103 or larger.
By summarizing the above results, with a rotary tool with a pin having a top in a spherical shape provides almost good welded part of SUS304 materials under the condition of 420 mm/min or smaller welding speed, 0.7 or smaller rotational pitch, and 3.2×103 or larger value of {(the rotational speed of the rotary tool [rpm]×the shoulder diameter [mm]3)/the moving speed of the rotary tool [mm/min]/the plate thickness [mm]}. Further, with a rotary tool with a pin having a top in a conical shape and with a rotary tool with a pin having a top in a polygonal prism shape provide good welded part of SUS304 materials under the condition of 300 mm/min or smaller welding speed, 0.5 or smaller rotational pitch, and 4.5×103 or larger value of {(the rotational speed of the rotary tool [rpm]×the shoulder diameter [mm]3)/the moving speed of the rotary tool [mm/min]/the plate thickness [mm]}. Consequently, it was found that the welding method of the embodiment is able to favorably weld SUS304 materials having a thickness of 1.5 mm using a rotary tool having 15 [mm] of shoulder diameter under the condition of 600 [rpm] of rotational speed and 0.1 to 0.7 [mm/r] of rotational pitch. According to the welding method of the embodiment, SUS304 materials are favorably welded together at the value of {(the rotational speed of the rotary tool [rpm]×the shoulder diameter [mm]3)/the moving speed of the rotary tool [mm/min]/the plate thickness [mm]} in a range from 3.233 103 to 22.5×103, inclusive. Accordingly, even with a rotary tool with a pin having a top in a conical shape and with a rotary tool with a pin having a top in a spherical shape, better welding strength at the welded part of SUS304 materials is attained than that obtained by the conventional rotary tool with a pin in a polygonal prism shape. In addition, since the pin is not in a polygonal prism shape, the life of rotary tool prolongs, and the manufacture of rotary tool becomes easy.
By summarizing the above results, with a rotary tool with a pin having a top in a conical shape, with a rotary tool with a pin having a top in a spherical shape, and with a rotary tool with a pin in a polygonal prism shape provide almost good welded part of SUS301L-DLT materials under the condition of 180 to 300 mm/min of welding speed, 0.3 to 0.5 of rotational pitch, and 4.5×103 to 7.5×103 of {(the rotational speed of the rotary tool [rpm]×the shoulder diameter [mm]3)/the moving speed of the rotary tool [mm/min]/the plate thickness [mm]}. Accordingly, with a rotary tool with a pin having a top in a conical shape and with a rotary tool with a pin having a top in a spherical shape provide welding strength at the welded part equivalent to that obtained by welding the materials using a conventional rotary tool with a pin in a polygonal prism shape. In addition, since the pin is not in a polygonal prism shape, the life of rotary tool prolongs, and the manufacture of rotary tool becomes easy.
By summarizing the above results, as a tendency of welding in SUS304 materials and SUS304-DLT materials, good welded part is obtained under the condition of, at least, 180 to 300 mm/min of welding speed, 0.3 to 0.5 of rotational pitch, and 4.5×103 to 7.5×103 of {(the rotational speed of the rotary tool [rpm]×the shoulder diameter [mm]3)/the moving speed of the rotary tool [mm/min]/the plate thickness [mm]}.
a) and 16(b) show the cross sections of welded part in Experimental Example, at different welding speeds, rotational speeds, and rotational pitches.
As seen in
The results of Experimental Example are summarized in
It is to be noted that the method for welding metals according to the present invention is not limited to the above embodiment, and can be modified in various ways within the range not departing from the scope of the present invention.
The present invention provides a method for welding metals which increases the life of rotary tool, and decreases the works for manufacturing the rotary tool and the manufacturing cost thereof.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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2004-136240 | Apr 2004 | JP | national |
2004-233741 | Aug 2004 | JP | national |
2004-236146 | Aug 2004 | JP | national |
2004-341172 | Nov 2004 | JP | national |
2005-058099 | Mar 2005 | JP | national |
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind | 371c Date |
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PCT/JP2005/004439 | 3/14/2005 | WO | 00 | 8/14/2007 |