Forget TIG welders, NASA pushes Friction Stir Welding
HUNTSVILLE, Alabama — Twenty years ago, it was a revolutionary idea for welding metal together. Ten years later, it was critical technology for America’s space shuttle. Today, the technology called “friction stir welding” is widely used to join aluminum alloy components – particularly in the transportation field where alloys save weight and weight costs money. “Anything light that travels – trains, boats, cars, planes,” explained Jonathan Martin of The Welding Institute of Cambridge, England. Martin is organizer of an international friction stir welding conference that opened Tuesday at the Von […]
