These laboratories are used for the research and development of friction welded joints. The core technologies offered from these facilities include rotary friction welding, linear friction welding and friction stir welding (invented by TWI in 1991).
The key industry benefits offered by the FFP laboratory are the wide range of similar and dissimilar materials which may be joined, formed, or processed using these low-temperature, low distortion solid-state techniques. A full friction welding support package is offered for all of the above technologies, from design review and feasibility trials, through to weld procedure specification, machine specification, site implementation and operative training to satisfy ISO conformity.
Equipment factsheet
Refill friction stir spot welding robot
Custom-built dual-head FSW machine
Linear friction welding machine
Open-structure linear friction welding machine
Prototype linear friction welding machine
Rotary friction welding machine
Wenzel 3D coordinate measuring machine (CMM) - LH1512
See here for a full list of TWI equipment.