Aluminum Tailor Welded Blanks – Preparing for High Volume Production

To support high volume production of aluminum welded blanks in the automotive stamping market, a collaboration between the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, General Motors, TWB Company, and Alcoa Inc. developed high speed friction stir welding tooling and parameters.  While traditional FSW velocities are less than one meter per minute, cost sensitive and high production volume products demand higher welding speeds that proportionally reduce the cost of welding.  Unfortunately, weld parameters and performance developed and characterized at low to moderate welding velocities do not directly translate to high speed FSW.  To facilitate production of high volume aluminum welded components, parameters and tooling were developed with a minimum welding velocity of three meters per minute.  Ultimately, aluminum blanks were produced to support stamping trials of full-size automotive door inner panels made from dissimilar thickness aluminum tailor welded blanks.