AFSW (Additive Friction Stir Welding) Processing of Launcher Structures

Conventional FSW processing has been developed at MT Aerospace within the last decade and now is successfully applied for Ariane 6 flight hardware production. Based on this broad heritage, additive friction stir welding has been further modified and developed during the last years for application as additive processing. The main motivation is:

• to simplify large cylinder barrel forming
• with complex local reinforcement geometries

The main target of the current study under ESA contract is to optimize the process for large full-scale application to AA2XXX alloys for cryo tank structures and AA7XXX alloys for intertank structures. The main goals / benefits for final industrialization are

• net shape forming of barrels with thin sheet material
• simple forming qualification
• without adoption of forming process with each single local geometry adaption
• application of the final local reinforcement by AFSW processing on formed and curved full scale geometry
• including in situ NDI during processing

Both development/qualification and subsequent series production can be simplified and optimized by introduction the AFSW processing up to industrialization.