POSTER
Healable Al alloys production by Friction Stir Processing
By Mariia Arseenko (UCLouvain), Lv Zhao (UCLouvain), Lipeng Ding (UCLouvain, University of Antwerp), Hosni Idrissi (UCLouvain, University of Antwerp), Eric Maire (INSA Lyon), Julie Villanova (ESRF - The European Synchrotron), Aude Simar (UCLouvain)

Aluminium alloys are commonly used in studies related to Friction Stir Welding (FSW) and Processing (FSP), due to their wide variety of applications. FSP provides grain size reduction; intermetallic rounding, size reduction and redistribution; and an overall increase in ductility. Moreover, FSP becomes a popular method for Metal Matrix Composites (MMCs) production, owing to the homogeneous distribution of reinforcement particles and their good interface with the initial matrix. In this work, a healable Al alloy from a base of Al 6063 is produced using FSP. FSP causes a uniform healing particle precipitation (with a size up to 1 µm), as well as the breakage of Fe-rich intermetallics in the nugget zone. This changes damage mechanism, meaning the classical failure source of Al 6063 - Fe-rich intermetallics - remain intact while the healing particles are broken. Further, at the healing stage, a heat treatment is applied to heal the damage.