In his seminal text Friction and Wear of Materials, Ernest Rabinowicz defines wear as “the removal of material from solid surfaces as a result of mechanical action” [1]. The wear problem is incredibly important from an economic perspective; in the manufacturing industry, cost is in direct proportion to the frequency with which a particular component must be replaced. In many applications, worn ...

Friction stir welding is a relatively new solid-state joining technique which is widely adopted in different industry fields to join different metallic alloys that are hard to weld by conventional fusion welding. Friction stir welding is a highly complex process comprising several highly coupled physical phenomena. The complex geometry of some kinds of joints and their three dimensional nature ...

Friction Stir Welding (FSW) is an innovative solid-state joining process, which is gaining a great deal of attention in several applicative sectors. The opportune definition of process parameters, i.e. minimizing residual stresses, is crucial to improve joint reliability in terms of static and dynamic performance. Longitudinal residual stresses, induced by FSW in AA2024-T3 butt joints, have bee...

The technological development of all kinds of lightweight transportation devices including vehicles, aircraft, ships, etc. has progressed markedly with the demand for energy saving and environmental protection. Aluminum alloy is in the spotlight as it is a suitable environmentally friendly material. However, deformation is a major problem during the welding process because aluminum alloy has a ...

The objective of this study was to develop a numerical model for the prediction of temperature distribution, effective plastic strain distribution, and especially material flow in friction stir welding of copper plates. The DEFORM-3D software was used by incorporating a lagrangian incremental formulation. Threedimensional results of the material flow pattern which were extracted using the point...

The relevance, importance and presence of industrial robots in manufacturing have increased over the years, with applications in diverse new and nontraditional manufacturing processes. This paper presents the complete concept and design of a novel friction stir welding (FSW) robotic platform for welding polymeric materials. It was conceived to have a number of advantages over common FSW machine...

Article history: Received 2.10.2012 Received in revised form 30.1.2013 Accepted 1.3.2013 Heat production of friction stir welding (FSW) is a fundamental phenomenon that affects the welding quality. Early studies have been focused on investigating and understanding the heat production and temperature distribution of the welding plate. However, very few studies have been done to analyze the stres...

Recognition of the friction stir welding process is growing in the aeronautical and aero-space industries. To make the process more available to the structural fabrication industry (buildings and bridges), being able to model the process to determine the highest speed of advance possible that will not cause unwanted welding defects is desirable. A numerical solution to the transient two-dimensi...

Friction stir welding is a refreshing approach to the joining of metals. Although originally intended for aluminium alloys, reach of FSW has now extended to a variety of materials including steels and polymers. This review deals with the fundamental understanding of the process and its metallurgical consequences. The focus is on heat generation, heat transfer and plastic flow during welding, el...