Abstract
Inertia welding is a solid-state welding process in which butt welds in materials are made in bar and in ring form at the joint face, and energy required for welding is obtained from a rotating flywheel. The stored energy is converted to frictional heat at the interface under axial load. The quality of the welded joint depends on many parameters, including axial force, initial revolution speed and energy, amount of upset, working time, and residual stresses in the joint. Inertia welding was conducted to make the large rotor shaft for low speed marine diesel engine, alloy steel for shaft of 140mm. Due to material characteristics, such as, thermal conductivity and high temperature flow stress, on the two sides of the weld interface, modeling is crucial in determining the optimal weld parameters. FE simulation is performed by the commercial code DEFORM-2D. A good agreement between the predicted and actual welded shape is observed. It is expected that modeling will significantly reduce the number of experimental trials needed to determine the weld parameters.
