Friction Stir Steel Butt Weld Demonstration - Model RM-1

MTI’s Friction Stir Welding process development and part production is making a dramatic impact across many industries, including aerospace, defense, transportation, marine, and electronics. Here are a few reasons why:
1. As a solid-state process, Friction Stir Welding eliminates many of the defects associated with conventional fusion welding techniques such as shrinkage, solidification cracking, and porosity. The bond between the two pieces is made solely of the original material, giving it similar strength, bending, and fatigue characteristics of the parent material.
2. The flexibility of our Friction Stir Welding process means we can accommodate the welding of large parts. Our in-house equipment, which we designed and built, can produce friction stir welds up to 55 feet long. This also allows the capability to join aluminum sheets produced at the mill, thereby increasing sheet widths while maintaining plate thickness tolerances.
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[@carmelpule6954]

This is a fascinating process that needs sheer power to produce what I may call a Vee weld. It appears that the Vee or inverted conical core is rotated and as it touches the metal, the friction softens it and digs to the required depth till it meets the upper rotating flats. By this time the rotating core is rotating in a melted pool of viscous metal slightly larger that the core itself, with the pool rotating with the core. Now as the core moves forward the friction ahead will soften the coming metal and through the "molten"metal space rotating it goes through the viscous path contained by the flats above, to fill the back space as the head moves forward, where everything solidifies. I bet the mathematical differential equation of the churn and curling and diverging and the dendrites reforming is something that no one has as yet has solved. Congratulations. How man can handle nature's materials is certainly astonishing. Pity my country is too small to have such industries

[@esotericgrave3129]

FSW is considered a solid state welding process. Which means the material actually doesn't ever melt. Rather it is 'plasticized.' Just FYI.

[@JimTheZombieHunter]

What manner of sorcery is this?

[@maditya1118]

can this be used to join ship hull plates? how beneficial would this be compared to conventional fusion weld?

[@jackmclane1826]

How long does the rotor last?

[@lnfotron]

ya except when your done you have to unbolt like 100 clamps

[@TheJohnGiurinChannel]

+456258qwerty Done automatically on production lines.

[@xenonram]

Wow, I bet that produces an extremely strong weld, but it is slow as all hell, and it seems like it would be restricted to welding small pieces of flat stock only. I wonder what the tool (spinning part) is made of. It has to be really hard to not be consumed in the process.

[@azinnate26]

At what depth is your plunge and what is your spindle speed? I do testing and do actual welds with a friction stir weld machine. It's neat to see other FSW machine

[@jeremyberger3505]

I dont understand why they don't need to protect the ''puddle'' as we do with regular welding to protect it from ambiant air while it cools down ?

[@yamilenayibeherrera7053]

Jeremy Berger It is carried out in solid state, material never melts at a macroscopic scale. Then, heating is lower than in fusion welding processes ; this means that mass difussion and reactions are less likely to happen. On the other hand, there exist FSW processes where stir zone is protected.

[@mateo9944]

Jeremy Berger It looks like there are coolant lines for the spindle in addition to some kind of gas lines. It could be for shielding gas.

[@silvermediastudio]

+Jeremy Berger Because there isn't a puddle. It is plastic deformation, causing the lattice to crosslink under heat and pressure.

[@Ucceah]

crazy physics. what is the tip made of, to stir up steel like cookie dough?

[@mohammadelhajj9901]

I think tungsten

[@frederikhendrickx1729]

Cuda FX For friction stir welding of steel the tip is generally made of CBN and additional elements. That material is also used for machining directly on hardened steels (maybe not exactly the same CBN composition). Manufactured for example by Megastir.

[@armr6937]

Cuda FX molybdenum and oxide dispersion strengthened alloys

[@karemmohamed8369]

but is that deep welding or just surface welded??? cause i know this type of welding uses in pipes

[@bengrogan9710]

Karem Mohamed if you watch the video again you will see there is a tip penetrating the metal, the weld is as deep as that tip

[@gcclarke1]

Slightly deeper than, in fact.

[@bretbowman2007]

Think Playdough. Friction stir welding never liquefies like traditional welding, but softens the metal through friction heat to a nice evenly distributed, doughy consistency, where edges become sticky. If you've ever rolled out pie dough, I think it's like that. When fresh and unfloured, pie dough is very sticky, but only because it's so incredibly soft while still being solid. As the metal cools back to normal, it gets flaky and delicous, in this analogy.

[@creativespace3077]

Beautiful

[@shahbazaria]

Thanks for the video. Do plates need to pre heat? Is this method just for Butt Weld? Do you think is it possible to use this method to welding storage Tanks which needs back weld? After watching this video I have got a lot of questions. Sorry to disturb you. thanks

[@TheExplosiveGuy]

This reply may be a bit late but better late than never. Yes, it is almost exclusively used for butt welds and is really only possible to use for flat parts unless the weld head has an A and B axis (expensive AF because of the rigidity required). It can be used for welding tanks but only the cylindrical portion since it requires a backing plate to support the enormous pressures applied. Back fill is not necessary as the weld depth can be set to the very bottom of the plate thickness resulting in a complete top-to-bottom weld. It is almost exclusively used to weld aluminum but as seen in this video steel can also be welded, however it uses much more power and generates far more heat than aluminum (more $ in tooling and equipment as well as requiring more time, an aluminum part of the same dimensions would take half the time). Stir welding is only economical for critical structures such as rocket bodies/parts or other similar applications due to the time and setup on top of the machine cost, they aren't cheap.

[@Nissanringking]

That is an impressive tool.

[@chipper442]

A decent mig could have had this done already.also, what’s with the cut in filming?

[@rafikghadir519]

?can you please tell me about the welding tool what is it made from and it's materiel

[@rednaxelI]

i wonder if you could weld dissimilar metals using this technology?

[@siaripop7]

I wonder what the tooling is made of in order to perform the weld and not disintegrate or melt?

[@MrAlibimon]

+Marc Del Tungston Carbide ?

[@baarni]

+Marc Del Pretty sure it is tungsten carbide as this has the highest toughness and red hardness of any known substance.

[@fg45de]

Could be also a ceramic for example PCBN (polycrystalline cubic Boron nitride)

[@daniellooney2837]

another gift from NASA

[@J4M35UK1]

Daniel Looney it was developed in the UK by the welding institute, not NASA.

[@praveenkrarts]

does Friction Stir Steel Butt Weld useful in railway steel bridge connections?

[@mtifrictionwelding]

Hello praveen jain! Friction Stir Steel Butt Welds can potentially be used on steel railway bridge connections, depending on the alloy and the application. The tradeoff is the result of the bond versus the pin tool life. We’d like to talk more to you about this application. Please click the submit button our website (www.mtiwelding.com) or give us a call.

[@rettgarner819]

Yes you can.

[@Brainmalfuction]

how is this process superior to conventional welding?

[@Brainmalfuction]

considering when done correctly the weld is stronger than the parent material i dont see a great benefit considering the massive expense of the setup other than very specialised applications

[@Brainmalfuction]

ok thanks for the info

[@davidrichards8639]

***** Not correct, with the CMT process you can weld steel to aluminium no problem.

[@davidrichards8639]

***** Cmt is full fusion welding similar to normal Mig/Mag, the main difference is that the welding wire is fed and retracted at about 100 hz so you only get half the heat input and smaller globules transferred across the arc giving virtually no spatter. There are new variations with pulse and polarity balance, Twin wire etc. It is generally for the thinner materials and cladding. The weld finish is excellent. A great process in the correct application.

[@silvermediastudio]

+Brainmalfuction Don't need gas, don't need filler rod. Fewer toxic by products. Ability to weld dissimilar metals.

[@FireicerCooper]

Incredible

[@VicariousReality7]

You pushed the plates apart

[@tranangkhue4841]

Can you give me some imformation about the material of your tools?

[@marceckos_psn4567]

Tungsten carbide

[@MoltenMouseMetal]

SCHWARZENEGGAR SAYS: THERE IS NO SUCH TING AS BUTT-WELD. A SQUARE-GROOVH WELD IN A BUHTT JOIHNT IS POSSIBLE, BUT THISS BUTT-WELD NONSENSE...

[@ccmyart]

I looked and looked and couldn't see any Steel Butts.

[@janvanruth3485]

any other welding proces would be much faster

[@ouisaly123]

Not practical in an assembly line manufacturing process, too slow and requires heavy duty machinery along with added man hours in preparation before the stir welding can even start.

[@jeremyberger3505]

Daddyoui S I think you are wrong because I work in a ski-doo assembly line and the company is investing in this process. But i understand your point, maybe is it better in results overtime ?

[@8strings8rounds]

It is not practical in a typical production setting. This method is typically reserved for massively crucial parts in jet and space engines.

[@frederikhendrickx1729]

Daddyoui S Friction stir welding on high fusion point materials (alloys of steel, titanium, nickel, ...) is still rather a lab technology and under development. On aluminium alloys it is already a proven production technology with acceptable speeds and high quality joints.

[@matsmoreau9295]

+animusity I can support that. I had the opportunity to go to NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville Alabama. I got a tour of the FSW building and I saw them in the process of welding pieces of the second stage adapter for a delta 4 heavy rocket.

[@TheExplosiveGuy]

Yah it's not the most efficient process but there is literally nothing stronger than a stir welded joint, especially when welding dissimilar alloys. I work in a shop as a QC Inspector that built the machine that stir welds the main rocket bodies for Blue Origin (Jeff Besos' version of SpaceX) and got to chat up the head engineer of that machine, he explained that FS welded aluminum joints have more strength than the surrounding forged material, which is insane to those that understand metallurgy. He mentioned that when the joints were destructively tested with high explosives everything but the weld path was destroyed, all that was left was a long twisted strip of aluminum which was the entire length of the stirred joint. It was an impressive machine too, 42 feet tall and about 12' x 12' to a side weighing in at 38,000 pounds, it took two of our 20 ton gantry cranes to load it into our milling machine (an impressive machine itself, 42' X axis 14' Y axis and 10' Z axis with a 50 horse spindle). It also helps with maintaining dimensional control, since everything is in an extremely constrained state due to the heavy clamping used to hold everything together when stir welding, normal welding causes tons of distortion due to thermal expansion. It's probably not the best thing for heavy production but when you are building critical parts that cannot fail it's the only way to go.

[@hotpapayasalad]

don't look like it got penetration

[@yur-moms-undies]

It's to slow,not practical,and it probably cost to damn much

[@MrTHEORIGINALICEMAN]

Yawn, I was doing friction stir welding in 1968.

[@ergzaynone4499]

Seeing as it didn't exist then, you're lying.

[@MrTHEORIGINALICEMAN]

You display your ignorance very well. MORON. Put up the cash, I'll put up the proof. $10, $100, $1000, $10000 doesn't matter how many zeros, your pick.

[@treymixon3618]

MrTHEORIGINALICEMAN how bout $0000000000.0000000000

[@ergzaynone4499]

"[Friction Stir Welding] was invented and experimentally proven at The Welding Institute UK in December 1991. TWI holds patents on the process, the first being the most descriptive." www.alueurope.eu/talat/lectures/4410.pdf If you did do it in 1968, you should file a patent and make lots of money yourself.

[@MrTHEORIGINALICEMAN]

If you know anything about patents you would know that would not be possible. I am surprised that they were able to patent it and satisfy the non-obvious requirement of the patent law. However UK patents may differ from US patents. Is it patented in the US as well? Furthermore, the offer still stands if you dare to bet me. I can show you the proof.

[@kirtisrivastava3122]

Beautiful