ANALYSIS OF FRICTION STIR WELDING JOINTS ON HIGH DENSITY POLYETHYLENE (HDPE) DUE TO CHANGE IN MATERIAL TEMPERATURE AND SPINDLE ROTATION

Friction stir welding (FSW) can be a solution in solving the problem of joining thermoplastic polymers which are difficult to do with fusion welding. Selection of the proper FSW connection parameters can produce optimal connection quality in HDPE material joints. In friction stir welding, the heat of welding is used to raise the temperature of the material from its initial state to the solid state temperature. If the material temperature (T₀) is increased above room temperature (T_Room), while the FSW welding parameter is constant, then at a certain increase in T₀ it will produce excess welding heat which results in excessive softening or even melting of the material being welded. Therefore, the material temperature setting (T₀) becomes an important parameter FSW The process of connecting the HDPE plates with friction stir welding was carried out by varying the material temperature (T₀) of T_Room, 50⁰C, 75⁰C and 100⁰C. While the spindle rotation varies 2000 rpm and 2500 rpm. Other parameters controlled include the type of square butt joint, 5 mm HDPE plate thickness, 20 mm/min feed rate, 0.1 mm plunge depth, 20 mm tool shoulder diameter, 4.5 mm pin length and 6 mm pin diameter. The result is that the higher the spindle rotation and the material temperature during the welding process causes the FSW peak welding temperature to increase. The highest peak weld temperature was obtained at variations in material temperature (T₀) 100 °C with a spindle rotation of 2500 rpm, which is 123.2 °C or 94% of the melting temperature of HDPE. The hardness of the weld nugged area is still lower than the hardness of the base material. The highest average tensile strength of the research variations was achieved at a spindle rotation speed of 2500 rpm and a material temperature of 75 °C of 16.8 MPa, higher than the average tensile strength of the base material which is 15.1 MPa.