Perspective of Friction Stir Welding Tools

Friction Stir Welding is a solid state method of welding of materials like aluminum. It uses simple and special designed tool having shoulder and a pin (or probe) which causes thermomechanical action for joining the materials. Shoulder attached to machine with vertical tooling system transfers axial load on the surface of work piece necessary to produce friction and plunging into the work piece. The rotating pin (probe) carries and stirs the plasticized material over its length and traverses along the direction of weld. The shoulder size and pin (probe) geometry affects the mechanical properties of welds formed. Hence there is challenge of tool design to increase joint efficiency. In this paper, review and perspective of effect of different tool geometries on weld formation have been discussed in brief. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Selection and/or Peer-review under responsibility of International Conference on Materials Manufacturing and Modelling (ICMMM - 2017).