Equipment for Solid State Stir Welding of High Temperature Materials

Stir welding generates high-quality joints in fabricated structure and is the baseline joining process for most NASA aluminum alloy structures such as cryogenic tanks and lightweight structures. Incorporating ultrasonic vibration to critical stir welding machine components will enable and expand stir welding to other high-strength, high-temperature alloys using solid state joining. This project will scale up proven ultrasonic vibration technology and incorporate it on a NASA stir welding machine for the weld fabrication of extendable liquid rocket engine skirts and other high temperature applications for space structures.