FSW Process Tolerance According to the Position and Orientation of the Tool: Requirement for the Means of Production Design

Abstract

Friction Stir Welding (FSW) is an innovative welding process increasingly used by industry for the welding of aluminum alloys. In order to reduce the high investment costs of a dedicated FSW’s machine and in order to offer more flexibility to weld complex geometry, high payload robots may be used. A serial kinematics robot meets these specifications but under the stresses generated during welding, its structure readily deforms. The consequences are deviations of the tool nominal position with respect to the seam. The work presented here proposes to study the process tolerances with tool positioning defect. An experimental study enables to evaluate the influence of the tool position disorientation on weld quality, the travel force and torque generated. The objective is to estimate the impact of the disorientation on the tool mechanical interactions when welding using a serial kinematics robot.

Mechanical performance research of friction stir welding robot for aerospace applications

“…19 For large and complex thin-walled surfaces in the industrial fields such as aerospace, rail transportation, and ship electronics, the types of welds are diverse and their distribution is complex. [20][21][22] Although the use of industrial robots as the welding body can meet the needs of process flexibility, due to the process characteristics of FSW, compared with the cutting and drilling loads of traditional machining, its load state is not only complicated but also more severe, which seriously affects the welding quality of seam forming. 23,24 At present, the research of FSW is mostly focused on obtaining better welding results by changing some parameters of the equipment, but there is not much research about analysis of load and strength stiffness of FSW equipment.…”

Analysis of typical working conditions and experimental research of friction stir welding robot for aerospace applications

“…8 For large complex thin-walled surfaces in aerospace, rail transit, ship electronics, and other industrial fields, the welding seams are of different types and their distribution is complex. 9,10 Although an industrial robot as a welding body can meet the requirements of process flexibility, it is subject to the industrial robot as the welding body can meet the requirements of process flexibility, it is subject to the process characteristics of friction stir welding. Compared to the cutting and drilling loads of traditional machining, the loaded state is not only complex, but also more severe, which seriously affects the quality of weld formation.…”

Off-line path programming for three-dimensional robotic friction stir welding based on Bézier curves

“…Serial industrial robots have lower investment costs and allow the welding of complex geometries, but they undergo deflection under the load applied during welding, leading the tool to deviate in the transverse or lateral direction (Voellner et al, 2007;De Backer, 2012). Zimmer-Chevret et al (2014) illustrated the ideal tool coordinate system position and orientation used to perform FSW (Figure 1). The tool must be placed according to the workpiece surface; at each point of the seam, the tool coordinate system must be tilted in the welding direction at a certain angle, commonly a 1°to 3°a ngle to the normal vector to the surface (Figure 1).…”

“…Under high loads, the tilt angle must be maintained at a nominal interval during the welding operation. Otherwise, the weld may contain defects, as described by Zimmer-Chevret et al (2014), Shultz et al (2010) and Chen et al (2006).…”