Identification of the Local Elasto-Plastic Behavior of FSW Welds Using the Virtual Fields Method

The present study focuses on the identification of the evolution of the local elasto-plastic properties of an Al 5456 FSW weld. To make the best use of the data collected using digital image correlation and to obtain an accurate identification of the evolution of the mechanical properties throughout the weld, an inverse procedure based on the Virtual Fields Method is proposed. Then, the strain-rate dependence of these properties is investigated by performing a set of tensile tests with a cross-head displacement speed evolving from 0.01 mm.s^− 1 to 76 mm.s^− 1. Identification of the evolution of the plastic properties throughout the weld with high spatial resolution has been achieved, and results from our study indicate that the plastic parameters in the center of the weld undergo a significant change even at low strain-rate (10 s^− 1).