Development of 5-Axis Friction Stir Welding System

A friction stir welding system with the flexibility of five axes has developed to join 3-dimensional curved surface. The features of the hardware of this system are: (1) the tool pressurization by an air cylinder is adopted. (2) In order to use for various researches, it has two kinds of FSW tool heads. (3) A 3-dimensional coordinate measuring instrument is installed to teach the weld line. The features of the software for this system are: (a) weld line is taught after a work piece is set on the table, (b) the control program is described by NC language, (c) the edition of welding conditions and the simulation of the tool path are available. This paper reports the structure and features of the system, and examples of FSW by the system