Investigations into an efficient computational tool for the simulation of friction stir welding of thermoplastic polymers
Nikolaos E. KARKALOS
Abstract. Welding is one of the major categories of manufacturing technologies, serving for the joining purposes for a wide variety of workpieces with different shapes and materials. Due to the intense thermo-mechanical phenomena occurring during welding, affecting the workpieces both in the macroscopic and the microscopic level, the choice of the processing conditions is not a trivial procedure in any case. Despite the availability of practical suggestions for the welding of large variety of materials, the increase of the use of some types of materials and the use of novel materials in the industrial applications, the detailed study of the phenomena occurring during welding is necessary. Although a considerable amount of numerical studies on the simulation of friction stir processing already exists, it is necessary to evaluate the validity of low cost and robust models in order to obtain fast but reliable results in the case of process optimization or preliminary studies. In this work, a low cost FE model is implemented and validated against experimental data regarding the prediction of temperature field during the friction stir welding of thermoplastic polymers. The findings of this work showed that although the low cost model contains several simplifications that restrict its accuracy, it was able to predict the temperature field and some heat transfer related quantities reasonably, indicating a potential for further improvement in order to adapt to a wide range of materials and operating conditions.
Keywords
Finite Element Method (FEM), Friction Stir Welding (FSW), Thermoplastic Polymers, Thermal Model
Published online 1/20/2026, 8 pages
Copyright © 2026 by the author(s)
Published under license by Materials Research Forum LLC., Millersville PA, USA
Citation: Nikolaos E. KARKALOS, Investigations into an efficient computational tool for the simulation of friction stir welding of thermoplastic polymers, Materials Research Proceedings, Vol. 61, pp 43-50, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21741/9781644903995-6
The article was published as article 6 of the book Innovative Manufacturing Engineering and Energy
Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.
References
[1] M.M.Z. Ahmed, M.M.S. Seleman, D. Fydrych, G. Cam, Friction stir welding of aluminum in the aerospace industry: the current progress and state-of-the-art review, Materials 16(8) (2023) 2971. https://doi.org/10.3390/ma16082971
[2] D.G. Mohan, C. Wu, A review on friction stir welding of steels, Chin. J. Mech. Eng. 34 (2021) 137. https://doi.org/10.1186/s10033-021-00655-3
[3] M.M. El-Sayed, A.Y. Shash, M. Abd-Rabou, M.G. ElSherbiny, Welding and processing of metallic materials by using friction stir technique: A review, J. Adv. Join. Process. 3 (2021) 100059. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jajp.2021.100059
[4] R. Rudrapati, Effects of welding process conditions on friction stir welding of polymer composites: A review, Compos. C: Open Access 8 (2022) 100269. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcomc.2022.100269
[5] X. He, F. Gu, A. Ball, A review of numerical analysis of friction stir welding, Progr. Mater. Sci. 65 (2014) 1-66. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pmatsci.2014.03.003
[6] C.M. Chen, R. Kovacevic, Finite element modeling of friction stir welding – thermal and thermomechanical analysis, Int. J. Mach. Tools Manuf. 43 (2003) 1319-1326. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0890-6955(03)00158-5
[7] Z. Zhang, H.W. Zhang, A fully coupled thermo-mechanical model of friction stir welding, Int. J. Adv. Manuf. Technol. 37 (2008) 279-293. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-007-0971-6
[8] S.B. Aziz, M.W. Dewan, D.J. Huggett, M.A. Wahab, A.M. Okeil, T.W. Liao, A fully coupled thermomechanical model of friction stir welding (FSW) and numerical studies on process parameters of lightweight aluminum alloy joints, Acta Metall. Sin. (Engl. Lett.) 31 (2018) 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40195-017-0658-4
[9] B. Meyghani, M.B. Awang, S.S. Emamian, M.K.B.M. Nor, S.R. Pedapati, A comparison of different finite element methods in the thermal analysis of Friction Stir Welding (FSW), Metals 7(10) (2017), 450. https://doi.org/10.3390/met7100450
[10] B. Meyghani, M.B. Awang, M. Momeni, M. Rynkovskaya, Development of a finite element model for thermal analysis of friction stir welding (FSW), IOP Conf. Ser. Mater. Sci. Eng. 495 (2019) 012101. https://doi.org/10.1088/1757-899X/495/1/012101
[11] D. Myung, W. Noh, J.H. Kim, J. Kong, S.T. Hong, M.G. Lee, Met. Mater. Int. 27 (2021) 650-666. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12540-020-00901-8
[12] R. Bhattacharjee, S. Datta, A. Hammad, P. Biswas, Prediction of various defects and material flow behavior during dissimilar FSW of DH36 shipbuilding steel and marine grade AA5083 using FE-based CEL approach, Model. Simul. Mater. Sci. Eng. 31(3) (2023) 035004. https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-651X/acbe5a
[13] N. Dialami, M. Chiumenti, M. Cervera, A. Segatori, W. Osikowicz, Enhanced friction model for Friction Stir Welding (FSW) analysis: simulation and experimental validation, Int. J. Mech. Sci. 133 (2017) 555-567. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmecsci.2017.09.022
[14] B. Meyghani, M. Awang, C.S. Wu, Finite element modeling of friction stir welding (FSW) on a complex curved plate, J. Adv. Join. Process. 1 (2020) 100007. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jajp.2020.100007
[15] N. Dialami, M. Cervera, M. Chiumenti, Numerical modeling of microstructure evolution in friction stir welding (FSW), Metals 8(3) (2018) 183. https://doi.org/10.3390/met8030183
[16] G. Yoshikawa, F. Miyasaka, Y. Hirata, Y. Katayama, T. Fuse, Development of numerical simulation model for FSW employing particle method, Sci. Technol. Weld. Join. 17(4) (2012) 255-263. https://doi.org/10.1179/1362171811Y.0000000099
[17] W. Pan, D. Li, A.M. Tartakovsky, S. Ahzi, M. Khraisheh, M. Khaleel, A new smoothed particle hydrodynamics non-Newtonian model for friction stir welding: Process modeling and simulation of microstructure evolution in a magnesium alloy, Int. J. Plast. 48 (2013) 189-204. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijplas.2013.02.013
[18] J.Y. Sheikh-Ahmad, S. Deveci, F. Almaskari, R.U. Rehman, Effect of process temperatures on material flow and weld quality in the friction stir welding of high desnity polyethylene, J. Mater. Res. Technol. 18 (2022) 1692-1703. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmrt.2022.03.082
[19] R.U. Rehman, J. Sheikh-Ahmad, S. Deveci, Effect of preheating on joint quality in the friction stir welding of bimodal high density polyethylene, Int. J. Adv. Manuf. Technol. 117 (2021) 455-468. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-021-07740-w
[20] N. Merah, Z. Khan, A. Bazoune, F. Saghir, Temperature and loading frequency effects on fatigue crack growth in HDPE pipe material, Arab. J. Sci. Eng. 31(2) (2006) 19-30.
[21] T. Okada, R. Ishige, S. Ando, Analysis of thermal radiation properties of polyimide and polymeric materials based on ATR-IR spectroscopy, J. Photopolym. Sci. Technol. 29(2) (2016) 251-254. https://doi.org/10.2494/photopolymer.29.251
