TWI Digital Library

Following a brief overview of the state of the art and applications for FSW of aluminium and Al alloys, experience and activities with this process at TWI Ltd (UK) are introduced. Principles, advantages and applications are presented of some process…

Friction stir welding experiments were undertaken on carbon manganese steel plates (thickness 6 mm) in order to map the internal temperature distribution, assess the effects of minimal plate preparation and investigate the microstructures and mechan…

Friction stir welding (FSW) experiments were undertaken on AA 5083 aluminium alloys to investigate the influence of process parameters (rotational and travel speeds) and preheating temperature on abnormal grain growth after PWHT. The experimental sp…

A friction bit joining (FBJ) process was developed to facilitate spot joining of dissimilar metals and the microstructure and mechanical properties of the welded joints were investigated. The material system considered comprised sheet specimens (thi…

The hybrid friction stir channelling (HFSC) technique was employed to produce, in one action, a channel and a joint between dissimilar thickness overlapping Al plates and dissimilar Al-Cu plates, and the microstructural and geometrical features of t…

An accurate temperature feedback strategy and closed-loop feedback control system for temperature have been developed for friction stir welding. A wireless data acquisition system was constructed to measure temperatures at the tool-workpiece interfa…

Two common approaches to describe kinematics in simulations of the friction stir welding (FSW) process, the Lagrangian representation and the Eulerian representation, were compared using "ABAQUS/Explicit" and "FLUENT" software programs, and the infl…

A production-capable friction stir welding (FSW) process was developed for butt welds (penetration 25.4 mm) in 6061-T6 aluminium alloys, designed specifically for robotic welding of large box assemblies requiring many multi-dimensional weld paths, a…

Friction stir welding (FSW) of 2219-T6 aluminium alloys (Al, 6.48%Cu) was undertaken with the assistance of micro-plasma arc preheating, and welding efficiency as well as joint microstructure and mechanical properties were investigated. Longitudinal…

A finite element model based on a staggered thermo-fluid solution scheme was employed to investigate flow around friction stir welding (FSW) tools, "MORFEO" code simulations were undertaken to predict flow patterns and temperature distribution in th…

Friction stir spot welding (FSSW) experiments were conducted between AA 5052 aluminium alloy and an SP-270C low carbon steel under various process conditions (tool rotation speed 1000-5000 rpm, plunge depth 0.1-0.7 mm), and the microstructure and me…

The material flow of aluminium alloy and steel during dissimilar friction stir spot welding was visualised using zinc tracers and the surface temperature of the flat-tipped tool during stirring was measured by telemetry. Welds were produced in AA505…

Friction stir welding (FSW) was employed to join partially recrystallised AA 5052 (Al, 2.3%Mg) sheet specimens (thickness 5 mm) and the relationship between microstructural development, mechanical properties and process parameters was investigated. …

The swept frequency friction stir spot welding technique was employed to fabricate lap joints in 6061 aluminium alloy workpieces and the influence of process parameters on mechanical properties was investigated. Welding experiments were conducted us…

Microstructural and textural variations in friction stir weld-affected regions of near-alpha Ti-5111 alloys (Ti, 5%Al, 1%Sn, 1%Zr, 1%V, 0.8%Mo) were investigated experimentally and a model incorporating micro-shear banding was proposed to account fo…

The details and methodology of an automatic path planning system for friction stir processing (FSP) of castings are presented, incorporating the means by which operator input is minimised, the limitations and challenges of the automatic programming …

With regard to the development of additive friction stir deposition (or MELD) as an additive manufacturing process, a mesh-free coupled thermomechanical approach was employed to model MELD by invoking smoothed particle hydrodynamics to discretise th…

Friction stir welding (FSW) experiments were undertaken on Invar 36 alloy (Fe,36%Ni) sheet specimens (thickness 3 mm) and the microstructure evolution and recrystallisation mechanism were investigated. Bead-on-plate FSW was performed using a polycry…

Dissimilar joints between wrought 5083 and 6111 aluminium alloys and between AZ31 magnesium alloy and 6111 were fabricated by friction stir welding and their microstructure and mechanical properties were investigated. The starting materials were 508…

An experimental study was carried out to investigate the link between the microstructure and the mechanical and corrosion properties for a friction stir welded aerospace aluminium alloy 7349-T6 (Al, 1.4-2.1%Cu, 1.8-2.7%Mg, 7.5-8.7%Zn) developed for …