friction stir welding

[aostling]

Two days ago I found myself staying in Socorro, New Mexico. This is a small town, but blessed with a first-rate college, the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, with about 2,000 boarding students. I spent an hour or so in the new library, perusing the new engineering and technical books.

One which caught my eye was Friction Stir Welding & Processing (2007), by Mishra & Mahoney. I'd not heard of this process, but learned that it was invented in the UK in 1991. It can successfully join materials considered virtually unweldable by conventional techniques.

http://images.google.com/images?q=fr...mages&ct=title has some slides, indicating how the process works. I don't see any reason why it could not be adapted to the home shop. Has anybody had experience with this?

[edit] I should have searched first. I see Evan mentioned this in a thread several years ago. But the book is new, so I will keep this thread, in case anybody has something new to add.

[jmm360]

I got to see a demonstration of this a few years ago at the Work Boat show in New Orleans. It was mesmerising but of doubtful use in a home shop, it looked like it was geared to mass production of small, flat aluminum parts. They welded pieces of aluminum together like a business card for samples and I've still got mine somewhere.

[mochinist]

Seen this talked about on one of the boards before, pretty interesting.

gotta love youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRC9_LJ4lJg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niVsJPFlg1Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDmwa...elated&search=


http://www.weldingmag.com/323/Issue/...e/False/11622/

[Guido]

Early 80's saw the first application of friction welds to replace male and female threaded pieces.

Each Halliburton pumping unit is equipped with bookoo, 15,000 psi rated pipe unions, nominally of 2 inch diameter. Originally threaded, days could be spent when rebuilding a manifold, using white lead for sealant/lube. Teflon solved that. Now, friction welding. Today's kids will never know the trials of trying to pressure test to 12K psi, in preparation for pumping nitrified HCl fluids.

Friction welding in the homeshop? Better have a good order for a large batch of identical parts. Would be fun, though--

G

[Your Old Dog]

I wrote a book on that very topic. Did lit ast year.

[aostling]

Friction welding in the homeshop? Better have a good order for a large batch of identical parts. Would be fun, though--
G

Guido,

Actually, friction stir welding is different from friction welding. Friction welding involves rubbing two parts together under pressure until the interface melts. In friction stir welding there is no relative motion between the two parts being joined. It is this which makes me wonder if it could be managed in a vertical mill with power feed table.

[john hobdeclipe]

The piece that spins and produces the friction and heat...what's it made of?

[aostling]

The piece that spins and produces the friction and heat...what's it made of?

John,

I don't know. Obviously it must have a melting point significantly higher than the materials being joined. So a steel tool could be adequate for joining aluminum, but for joining steel some other metal must be needed.

[Swarf&Sparks]

Just a wild guess, but Ti or a ceramic?

[Evan]

I don't see any reason why it could not be adapted to the home shop. Has anybody had experience with this?

Sure. I recently had to drill mounting holes in about 14 cast iron barbell weights to use a wheel weight on my lawn tractor. The smaller 5 lb weights are thin enough that they will cool fast enough to produce chilled spots. They are harder than the hammers of hell. However, my gearhead Strands drill press has a lot of torque and a large mechanical advantage on the spindle downfeed.

When I met one of those spots I just started hanging on the quill feed, poured the coal to it and tried to ignore the banshee screeching sound of drill bit doom until the red hot drill bit melted it's way through the weight. Friction, stirred, not shaken...