TWI

A review is presented of the development programme to achieve a production-ready procedure to manufacture copper canisters for Swedish radioactive waste storage using friction stir welding (FSW) for encapsulation, incorporating adaptive thermal management control of the process, tool safety factors and demonstration of the required properties for the weld zone. The FSW procedure is outlined including the tool probe and shoulder design, the welding machine at the canister laboratory and the weld cycle sequence (plunge-and-dwell, start, downtravel, steady-state and overlap-and-park). Welding results are reported for a production-like series of lid welds together with a design of experiments methodology for process optimisation and destructive testing methods. Future development work is outlined.

6th International Symposium, 10-13 Oct 2006, Session 7A: Applications, Paper 03