Friction Stir Welding - Equipment

Friction stir welding machines are commercially available from several machine manufacturers and include installations for welding up to 16m lengths. The following companies are licensed by TWI to supply FSW equipment:

Friction stir welding equipment manufacturers

(5 August 2008)

Company	Contact
Centre de recherche industrielle du Québec (CRIQ) 333 rue Franquet Sainte-Foy (Québec) Canada G1P 4C7 Website: www.criq.qc.ca	Luc Vanden-Abeele luc.vanden-abeele@criq.qc.ca Tel: +1 514 383-3216 Fax: +1 514 383-3247
China FSW Center Beijing FSW Technology Co., Ltd P O Box 340 Beijing China FSW Center 100024 China Website: www.cfswt.com	Luan Guohong luanguohong@cfswt.com Tel: +86 10 8570 2237, Mobile: 13701060369 Fax: +86 10 85702187
ESAB AB Welding Equipment SE-695 81 Laxå Sweden Website: www.esab.com	Mr Johan Norström johan.norstrom@esab.se Tel: +46 584 812 85 Fax: +46 584 41 17 21
FPE Ltd / Gatwick Fusion Ltd Unit 5, Home Farm Road Brighton, East Sussex BN1 9HU, United Kingdom Website: www.fpe.co.uk	Mr Andrew Ward Managing Director andy.ward@fpe.co.uk Tel: +44 1273 606918 Fax: +44 1273 670814
Friction Stir Link, Inc. W227 N546 Westmound Drive Waukesha, WI 53186 Website: www.frictionstirlink.com	Mr John F Hinrichs jhinrichs@frictionstirlink.com Tel: +1 262 522 6680 Fax: +1 262 522 6681
General Tool Co 101 Landy Lane Cincinnati, OH 45215 USA Website: www.gentool.com	Mr Jack Thompson jackt@gentool.com Tel: +1 513 772 0112 Fax: +1 513 772 2612
Hitachi Research Laboratory HITACHI LTD 7-1-1, Omika, Hitachi, Ibaraki, 319-1292 Japan	Dr M Inagaki minagaki@hrl.hitachi.co.jp Tel: +81 294 52 7544 Fax: +81 294 52 7545
MTS Systems Corporation 1400 Technology Drive Eden Prairie MN 55344-2290 USA Website: www.mts.com	Mr M J Skinner mike.skinner@mts.com Tel: +1 952 937 4653 Fax: +1 952 937 4515
Nova-Tech Engineering 20818 44 ^th Ave. W. Suite 201 Lynnwood, WA 98036 USA Website: www.ntew.com	Mr Donald J Holman dholman@ntew.com Tel: +1 425 245 7000 Fax: +1 425 245 7099
Transformation Technologies, Inc. 112 Rush Court Elkhart, IN 46516 USA Website: www.transformation-tech.com	Timothy J. Haynie-PE President tim.haynie@transformation-tech.com Tel: +1-574-970-4835 Fax: +1-775-628-3749
Winxen Company Ltd 61-11 Palyong-dong Changwon-shi Kyungnam Korea 641-847 Website: www.winxen.com	Mr T Roh Welding@winxen.com Tel: +82 55 295 4567 Fax: +82 55 295 4848

Introduction

TWI has an impressive collection of friction stir welding machines, probably the most comprehensive within a single company. All are available for R&D work, and for small scale and prototype production.

TWI is constantly seeking to expand its FSW capabilities, and maintain state-of-the-art equipment at both its Abington and South Yorkshire sites. The following summarizes the currently available (October 2005) equipment.

ESAB SuperStir^TM machine TWI installed an ESAB SuperStir^TM machine in its friction welding laboratory, in Abington. The machine has a vacuum clamping table as well as conventional mechanical and hydraulic clamps, and can be used for non-linear joint lines. Sheet thickness: 1mm-25mm aluminium Work envelope: Approx 5 x 8 x 1m Maximum down force: Approx 60kN (6t) Maximum rotation speed: 5000rev/min
Crawford-Swift - High Force Multi Axis FSW machine This machine was selected to extend the boundaries in the research and development of thick section FSW. The machine is one of the largest FSW machines in the world with over 130KW of spindle power. It has 12 programmable machine axes, a maximum down force of 15 tonnes and operates over an area of 6m x 3m. The machine has 3D welding capability and features an opposed welding head - a second welding head located directly beneath the upper head, which allows simultaneous, twin-sided welding to be performed. This offers the potential to weld materials up to 100mm thick in one pass. It is based in Rotherham.
Transformation Technologies - Precision Spindle FSW Machine The unique feature of the machine is its high concentricity spindle. This precision spindle allows research into the new range of ceramic tools being developed for friction stir welding of materials which have higher softening temperatures than those metals traditionally welded by FSW. Higher softening temperature materials include steels, stainless steels, titanium and nickel-based alloys. This fully instrumented machine is capable of producing a down force of 10 tonnes and has a working envelope of 2m x 0.6m. This machine is based in Rotherham.
Friction Stir Link, Inc - RoboStir Robotic FSW Machine This system combines the power of friction stir welding technology with the flexibility of an ABB 7600 robot. This provides versatility not before associated with friction stir welding, with the ability to weld in any position and follow complex 3D weld paths, with the possibilities only limited by the imagination of the engineer. The machine has a working envelope of 5 metre diameter and can be physically repositioned to cater for larger components. The system incorporates a comprehensive data logging system to monitor and control the important FSW process parameter. The robot will also provide the platform to develop the variant of FSW, Friction Spot Stir Welding which is solid state welding alterative to conventional spot welding. This machine is based in Rotherham.

Other equipment

TWI also has two small demonstration machines (one of which can be taken off site, plus a number of milling machines which can if necessary be used for friction stir welding.

Friction Stir Welding - Equipment