New projects

Project News, September - October 2008

For a full list of proposed, active and closed projects see here

Assessment of Bobbin Friction Stir Welding for the Joining of Aluminium Alloys

To be launched:
JAPAN: 17 October 2008
UK: 21 October 2008
Cost per Sponsor: £20,000 per annum
Duration: 2 years
Project Leader: Jonathan Martin

The friction stir welding (FSW) process was invented by TWI and was originally developed for industrial exploitation via a TWI Group Sponsored Project (GSP), the Sponsors of which were amongst the first to benefit from the newtechnology. TWI has recently developed a novel enhancement to the FSW process, which offers the potential to produce improved full penetration welding performance using significantly simplified, and therefore cheaper, equipment. Theenhanced process can be implemented in two varieties named fixed and floating bobbin FSW.