DEVELOPMENT AND CONSTRUCTION OF A FIXTURE FOR ENHANCING FRICTION STIR WELDING OPERATIONS

Friction Stir Welding being a solid-state process is free from defects generally occurs in fusion welding process. FSW of Stainless Steel is done on retrofitted vertical milling machine. For this welding operation a fixture is needed on which the plates which are to be butt welded is to be bolted. Fixture is required in various industries according to their application. This can be achieved by selecting the optimal location of fixturing elements such as locators and clamps.In this paper first fixture is designed using CREO software keeping certain things in view like groove of fixture to be such that it accommodates both backing plate and metal plate to be welded, then development of fixture is done using CREO drawing.  We developed a clamping system and an instrumented setup for a vertical milling machine for friction stir welding (FSW) operations and measuring the process forces. Taking into account the gap formation (i.e., lateral movement) and transverse movement of the workpiece, a new type of adjustable fixture was designed to hold the workpiece being welded.

Keywords: Friction Stir Welding, Solid-State Joining, Weld Quality, Material Compatibility, Industrial Applications