Monitoring of the friction stir welding process by means of thermography

This work is a study of the thermal behaviour of aluminium alloy 5754-H111 sheets welded with the friction stir welding (FSW) process. In particular, the feasibility of infrared thermography for monitoring of the FSW process is presented. This process has different advantages compared to those of traditional welding, such as very low welding temperature and low mechanical distortion. Usually in the literature, destructive tests are carried out to evaluate the quality of joints, but this approach is time-consuming and off-line. Results have shown that the thermal behaviour of joints is correlated to process parameters and that thermography can be used to perform the online monitoring of the FSW process.