Technical Paper
Increasing Competitiveness in Structural Assembly by using Solid-State Spot Welding (Friction Spot Welding and Friction Stir Spot Welding) as a Replacement of Traditional Fasteners and Rivets?
2012-09-10
2012-01-1878
To join sheet metal made out of aluminium, riveting is common practice. This process contains several disadvantages. On the one hand, large, specially designed and cost-intensive machines are used within automation engineering. Normally, those tools are not reconfigurable and cannot be used for general purposes. On the other hand, adding the rivet to the structure also increases weight of the whole craft. The proposed method of friction welding addresses those limitations of riveting. At the Institute of Production Engineering, Helmut-Schmidt-University, research is conducted to provide a control assuring process reliability to perform friction welding fully automated as well as manually. Friction spot welding is a sub-section of friction welding, where a rotating tool that consists out of three parts is used to heat up material to a dough-like state.
