Stir Welder: Friction Stir Welding in Automotive Industries

Since the invention of friction stir welding (further abbreviated as FSW) 18 years ago, it wasobvious that this technique had some significant advantages regarding automotive andaviation industries. However, a breakthrough is never achieved so far. This is partiallybecause FSW has to compete with some very common an reliable techniques like arc andspot welding. Also Saab uses spot welding very often. In general, a regular car containsbetween 2000 and 3000 spot welds. Due to the introduction of robotic FSW, the processgains in flexibility which makes it now attractive to explore the possibilities and limits forautomotive applications. If it turns out that FSW is as fast and as flexible as spot welding, itcan be considered to replace the spot welding installation by friction stir welding robots.