Friction processing joins metals through increased friction without melting them. The friction agitation machining method inserts a tool through a piece of metal and moves it rapidly, increasing heat and friction until the separate pieces of metal come together. This process improves the microhardness, fatigue strength, and tensile strength of the metal while using less energy. The process does not require melting the metal, making it safer and more cost-effective.
Friction processing is a metallurgy technique that joins metals through increased friction without melting them. The friction agitation machining method begins by inserting a tool through a piece of metal. After that, the tool moves the metal rapidly, increasing heat and friction until the separate pieces of metal in the machine come together. This does not normally cause any phase changes, which is commonly required to combine metals. In addition to using less energy, this also improves the microhardness of the metal and its tensile strength and fatigue strength.
To start the frictional stirring process, several pieces of metal are inserted into a stirring processor. The main piece of metal, the one that the other metals are joining, has a rod that pierces it. This rod is made of metal, but is not absorbed during machining, as it is only intended to increase friction and aid in machining.
The rod then starts working by moving the main piece of metal. The motions become more intense over time, causing friction to build up between all the different pieces of metal. When sufficient friction is produced through the processing of friction agitation, all metals unite into one.
While there are many ways to join pieces of metal together, the friction stirring process is different from most because there is no phase change during the joining process. The metal normally has to be melted or transformed from solid to liquid. With the process of friction, the intense friction has enough force to bring the metals together, although they all remain solid in the process.
There are many advantages to using friction shuffling processing. One such advantage is energy conservation. When metal needs to be melted, this requires a great deal of heat, which requires a lot of energy and many specialized tools made to hold the incredibly hot molten metal. This is expensive and can be very dangerous if molten metal escapes and workers are exposed to it.
Another benefit of this process is that the metal itself is often improved much more than it would be through other metallurgy operations. For example, microhardness, fatigue strength and tensile strength usually double or triple, depending on the metals used and joined together. Using high heat can also soften the metal after machining, which can be a problem if an extremely hard metal is needed for construction, lab testing, or any other purpose.
Protect your devices with Threat Protection by NordVPN
