Friction Stir Spot Welding of Steel Structures - A Brief Review

Abstract

Friction stir welding is a relatively new technique, which, due to its advantages, has been continuously developed and applied to industrial applications. Friction stir spot welds (FSSW) are one variant of friction stir welding (FSW) where the traverse part of the FSW process is eliminated, i.e., the tool is only plunged into the material and retracted. The resulting weld is a point or “spot” weld. This process of joining materials in solid state is an extremely complex one because of the physical phenomena that occur during the process, which makes the research still in full development. The paper presents an analysis of recent scientific work on the use of the FSSW process for the joining of steel structures. Thus, this study analyses the types of steel and joined structures, the process parameters used in experimental research, and the mechanical properties of FSSW joined steel structures. The main conclusions of the studied papers are summarized and the main research directions on the steel structures joined by the FSSW process are identified.