Abstract
Friction Stir Welding (FSW) is one of the most effective solid state joining processes and it has numerous potential applications in many industries. The simulation process can provide the evolution of physical quantities such as temperature, metallurgical phase proportions, stress and strain which can be easily measured during welding. The numerical modelling requires the modelling of a complex interaction between thermal, metallurgical and mechanical phenomena. The aim of this paper is to describe the thermal-fluid simulation of FSW using the finite element method. In the theoretical part of the paper heating is provided by the material flow and contact condition between the tool and the welded material. The thermal-fluid results from the numerical simulation for aluminium alloy using SYSWELD are also presented in this paper.