FRICTION STIR WELDING SYSTEM FOR HIGH-MELTING TEMPERATURE MATERIALS
This new technology includes a pipe welder with a special spindle head and pipe clamp to hold the pipe in place and weld together pieces of pipe in a single pass.
Posted: April 15, 2010
ESAB Welding & Cutting Products (Florence, SC ) offers a new friction stir welding system designed to weld high-melting temperature materials, including ferrous alloys.
Friction stir welding is a solid-state joining process that provides many advantages over typical arc welding processes, including lower total heat input and the elimination of solidification defects associated with arc welding. Because melting does not occur in friction stir welding and joining takes place below the melting temperature of the material, a very high-quality weld can be created with low heat input, minimal distortion, no filler material and no fumes. Friction stir welding is also highly efficient and more environmentally friendly than other welding methods and permits joining of dissimilar metals.
Friction stir welding had previously been limited to low melting temperature materials such as aluminum, brass and copper. ESAB's new system expands friction stir welding to higher melting temperature such as ferritic steels, stainless and duplex stainless steels, and nickel base alloys by use of tools made from polycrystalline cubic boron nitride (PCBN), polycrystalline diamond (PCD), and abrasive materials such as metal matrix composites (MMC).
This new technology will be available in several styles, including a pipe welder designed with a special spindle head and pipe clamp to hold the pipe in place. This system can weld together pieces of pipe in a single pass.
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