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WELDING BY FRICTION: BRITISH MACHINE TO BE MARKETED
Page 65
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E'RICTION welding machines are being made for the first time by a British company. One will be exhibited at the Research, Development and Production Exhibition at Olympia on May 4-9. The makers, Black's Friction Welding Co., 44 Masons Hill, Bromley, Kent, announced last week that, after years of development by the British Welding Research Association, the process was now a commercial proposition.
It is understood that the first patents for the process were taken out in Britain during the Second World War but the idea was taken up by Russia and, later, by United States engineers. Now the first British production machine is being built, and already at least one major
vehicle-producing company is deeply interested in the system's potentialities.
Advantages claimed by the makers for friction welding are: it is an efficient method of converting mechanical energy into heat, since conversion occurs precisely at the welkplane; it is rapid and extremely economical and produces a weld of very high integrity in a wide range of alloys; by comparison with other methods of producing similar welds, not only is the friction weld of superior quality, but it is in many cases much quicker; power consumption is relatively low and is taken from mains supply.
On the debit side: at present it is essentially a production technique (the first commercial machine, for materials up to 21-in. diameter, will cost around £5,000) rather than a workshop aid, and it is limited at the moment in that one of the two components being welded must be of true circular section. But its possibilities appear very considerable and a director of Black's Friction Welding Co. told me this week that a second machine to be built will take tubular components of up to 4 in. diameter and already diameters of 9 in. in solid or tubular material are being planned as feasible.
The process readily welds aluminium to brass or copper, steel; to' aluminium, carbon steel to high-speed steel, zirconium, titanium and other alloys. Using solid steel as an example, the first machine will weld from fin. to 11 in. diameter, or tubes up to 24. in. It can be set for manual, semi-automatic or fully automatic operation and it produces no arc flash or spatter.
The operating -method is simple in principle. A standard chuck holds one component and is belt-driven to high speed by an electric motor; an adjustable table holds the stationary component, itself gripped in a chuck. The two are brought together and when friction has brought their contact areas to white heat (which happens rapidly), the rotating component is braked (by disc) to standstill and the stationary component is pressed against it by hydraulic pressure. The weld takes place almost instan
taneously. In the • first production machine, a hydraulic power pack of 1,500 p.s.i. capability is being installed, though pressures used depend on the materials
being welded. • H.B.C.