Design and development of Fixture for Friction Stir Welding

Abstract

Friction Stir Welding being a solid-state process is free from defects generally occurs in fusion welding process. FSW of Stainless Steel is done on retrofitted vertical milling machine. For this welding operation a fixture is needed on which the plates which are to be butt welded is to be bolted. In this paper first fixture is designed using AutoCAD software keeping certain things in view like groove of fixture to be such that it accommodates both backing plate and metal plate to be welded, then development of fixture is done using AutoCAD drawing. Apart from this a five nos. of clamps is also manufactured for holding the plates firmly and subsequently a key is also manufactured for the purpose of fixing and balancing of plates to be welded.

Key words : FSW; fixture; clamps; key; shaping; milling; drilling