The severe deformation and temperature paths in the stir zone, also called weld nugget, of friction stir welded joints result, at very local levels, in significant microstructural variations, such as major differences in grain size or precipitation. One of the most common features of friction stir welds is the presence of successive material layers, known as onion rings; however, little data is available on the mechanical properties of the different regions of the weld nugget, and particularly within the onion ring bands. Such information becomes very important for the integrity of large size friction stir welded structures. In the present study, a comprehensive characterization of onion rings produced during friction stir welding of a 6082-aluminum alloy was carried out. Advanced techniques such as in-situ SEM nanoindentation, EBSD, and high-resolution EDS were used to validate and compare the characteristics of the different bands in the onion rings. The analyses consisted of quantifying variations in grain size, precipitate composition and distribution, crystallographic orientations, and mechanical properties in each band. Furthermore, the tensile strengths of different regions of the weld nugget were evaluated using shear punch testing and correlated with those for the onion ring region in order to determine the impact of the presence of onion rings on weld nugget mechanical properties. The main difference between the alternate bands in the onion ring was found to be due to the difference in their grain size, misorientation, and precipitate content. It was also observed that the bands originate from the base metal and stir zone successively due to the nature of the stirring process, which pulls BM into SZ. Comparison of the shear punch testing results in different regions of the nugget revealed that, in spite of having local differences in the hardness of alternate bands in the onion ring, the presence of onion rings has no significant impact on the deterioration of the mechanical properties of the weld nugget.

Bake hardening (BH) is a vital part of special steel production. Studies in this field have focused on steels under homogeneous yielding, but until now, none have been conducted on the phenomena that occur for steels under heterogeneous yielding. In the current study, the effect of adding Nb and V alloying elements on the strength of ultra-low carbon (ULC) steel after bake hardening was investigated. The effects of pre-strain, grain size, and recrystallization annealing temperature were analyzed, as well as the effect of Nb and V on the yield stress caused by the bake hardening process. For this purpose, five types of alloys with different V and Nb contents were melted, cast in an induction furnace, and subjected to hot hammering and hot rolling. Then, cold rolling was applied to the samples by ~80%. To eliminate the effects of cold working, tensile samples were subjected to recrystallization annealing at 750 and 800 °C for 30 min, and the samples were quickly quenched in a mixture of a NaCl solution and ice. The annealed samples were subjected to a pre-tensile strain in the range of 2–12% and then aged in a silicone oil bath at 180 °C for 30 min. Then they were subjected to a tensile test. The obtained results showed that with the increase of the pre-strain and the annealing temperature, the values of baking hardness increased. The presence of V in the composition of steel reduced the annealing temperature.