Friction Stir Welding: An Emerging Alternative to Fusion Welding for Steel [N45]

Friction Stir Welding (FSW) has been described as one of the most significant advances in joining technology in the last fifty years. This solid state joining process, originally developed for aluminum welding by The Welding Institute, can produce defect free welds and is widely employed by industries such as aerospace and automotive manufacturing. It has been shown to produce welds of higher quality, lower distortion, reduced cost, and minimal environmental impact when compared to traditional fusion welding of steels with less than 10% of the energy consumption. It can even be used to join typically un-weldable alloys and highly dissimilar metals. Current advancements with applications in pipe and offshore industries and studies on high strength steels provide evidence of strong potential for applications in steel construction.

View content