Friction Stir Welding of steels - a further evaluation

TWI Industrial Member Report Summary 884/2007

By R Johnson

Introduction

This report summarises the work performed in the TWI Core Research Programme on the friction stir welding (FSW) of steels. The first results were reported in 2005 (Johnson, 2005), and covered the FSW of some ferritic steels, using refractory metal W-25Re and ceramic poly-crystalline cubic boron nitride (PCBN) FSW tools. This is the first of two further reports covering the evaluation of FSW of steels using both refractory metal and ceramic tools.

Objective

To determine the comparative performance of selected refractory metal and ceramic friction stir welding tools for the joining of steels.