Prediction of Friction Stir Welding effects on AA2024-T3 plates and stiffened panels using a shell-based finite element model

Manufacturing-induced effects can strongly affect in-service behaviour of welded structures, such as integrally stiffened panels for aeronautic applications. Being a complex phenomenon with several variables involved, the assessment of effects coming from welding usually relies on numerical simulations. Here, a novel shell-based finite element model is proposed to accurately simulate transient thermal fields and stress-strain distributions resulting from friction stir welding (FSW) processes. It is shown that the proposed model is able to accurately predict the (i) residual stresses; (ii) material softening and (iii) geometric distortion effects, in an comprehensive way, of friction stir welded aluminium integrally stiffened panels.