TWI

A friction stir spot welding process variant was evaluated, which was intended to remove the hole left in the weld when the probe is removed, and consequently improve weld properties. In the two-step procedure, first a backing plate was used that ha…

Friction stir welding (FSW) was employed to fabricate hybrid joints between wrought AA 5454 aluminium alloys and AZ 91 die cast magnesium alloys, and the weldability, microstructure, mechanical properties, corrosion and fracture behaviour of the wel…

Conventional friction stir welding (FSW), hybrid FSW and thermal stir welding were evaluated and compared for the joining of a nickel-based superalloy Haynes 230. Welds were made in Haynes 230 NiCrW alloy (20-24%Cr, 13-15%W, 6.4 mm thickness), an in…

Defects and their mitigation associated with the fabrication of fluid-cooled aluminium alloy heatsinks for electronic applications are discussed. The heatsink consisted of an aluminium alloy 6063 substrate (310 x 300 mm) with a series of rectangular…

Arcan tests (pure tensile, pure shear and mixed tensile/shear loads) were performed on parent material (6056-T78 aluminium alloy) and friction stir welded (FSW) specimens for comparison purposes and to assess the capability of strain field measureme…

Stationary shoulder friction stir welding (SSFSW) and conventional FSW experiments were undertaken on AA 7050-T7651 alloy plates (thickness 6.3 mm) to demonstrate the advantages of SSFSW with respect to surface finish, thermal profile symmetry, HAZ …

An algorithm and procedure for controlling process zone temperature during friction stir processing are presented. The approach is based on the correlation between weld zone temperature with spindle power. A simplified thermal balance model of the w…

The use of friction stir welding in aircraft manufacture, particularly the Airbus, both as an alternative to riveting and for the production of tailored blanks, is discussed. Potential benefits include cost and weight reduction. The European aircraf…

Preliminary results from a 3-dimensional heat and material flow computer simulation program for friction stir welding are given and compared with experimental observations. The simulation is based upon solutions of Navier-Stokes equations and nonlin…

Friction stir welding was used to produce a space shuttle external barrel section of 2195-T8 Al-Cu-Li alloy. Seven panels (joint thickness of 8.1 mm (0.32 in)) were joined to form a barrel 8.4 m (27.5 ft) in diameter and 4.6 m (15 ft) long. A comput…

A description is presented of the development of an aircraft adapter pallet system for the rapid deployment of supplies and equipment for use by the US Army. The pallets consisted of seven lightweight AA-6005A aluminium alloy (Al, 0.4-0.7%Mg, 0.5-0.…

Dissimilar joints between half-hard phosphorus deoxidised copper and annealed wrought AA 5083 alloys (Al, 4-4.9%Mg, 0.4-1%Mn) were fabricated by friction stir spot welding and the influence of process parameters on joint microstructure and mechanica…

An investigation is presented into the occurrence of a grey line in x-ray diffraction of friction stir welded joints of AA 2024-T62 aluminium alloys, and its influence on mechanical and fatigue properties. Welding in 2 mm sheet was performed using a…

The velocity field in the shear layer surrounding the tool/matrix interface in friction stir welding (FSW) was used to characterise material flow and was investigated by x-ray/computational tomography (CT) marker material experiments as well as anal…

Friction stir welding experiments were conducted on plate specimens (thickness 6 mm) of AA 2219 aluminium alloys (Al, 6.48%Cu, 0.32%Mn) and the crystallographic texture and deformation behaviour of the weld zones (HAZ, thermomechanically affected zo…

A techno-economic assessment study was undertaken with respect to the feasibility of the friction stir welding (FSW) technique for microalloyed DH36 grade shipbuilding steel (0.11%C, 1.48%Mn, 0.02%Nb, 0.02%Al) plates (thickness 6 mm). Single sided f…

A coupled Eulerian-Lagrangian approach with Abaqus v.6.14 finite element software was employed to model the whole friction stir welding (FSW) process within one continuous model and results for temperature fields, surfaces, weld formation and proces…

The fatigue performance of friction stir welded butt joints in 2024-T3 aluminium alloy plate (thickness 6.35 mm) was investigated by adopting six different tool designs and using a design of experiments analysis over a wide range of process paramete…

In relation to the generation of oscillating process forces during friction stir welding (FSW), hypotheses covering phenomena that can lead to dynamic effects were formulated and a finite element model of the process-machine-system (containing both …

Details are reported of application of friction stir welding (FSW) to manufacture of double skin bodies of railway carriages for commuter lines in Japan. A "defect free" FSW process is used to weld double skin panels of length 25 m using hollow extr…