Why Friction Welding?
Used by OEM’s across multiple industries worldwide, friction welding holds numerous advantages over conventional welding, the most important being:
It’s More Cost Effective!
*Learn more about cost reduction & efficiency gains
You can save money across the board with our friction welding process:
- Friction welding doesn’t use consumables like filler metals, fluxes, gases, etc.
- Reduces machining labor, thereby reducing perishable tooling costs while increasing capacity.
- Reduces raw material costs in bi-metal applications – Saving money on expensive or rare materials.
Bonding Dissimilar Metals
One of the biggest incentives for adopting a new friction welded design is the ability to combine dissimilar materials.
- Conventional welding methods don’t allow the joining of different materials; but friction welding does, allowing the use of exotic alloys in special use areas!
See our Materials Combined List to learn more.
Additional Benefits Worth Considering
The advantages of friction welding don’t end with lower costs:
- Faster turn-around times – compared to the long lead time of forgings, which are currently 6 months or longer.
- Suitable for diverse quantities – from single prototypes to high-volume production.
- Full surface weld – giving superior strength in critical areas for long-lasting durability.
- Consistent component quality – our friction welding process produces duplicate integrity through repeatable metal fusion.
Friction Welding Applications
Common applications are combining: axle shafts, bar stock sections, cast iron to steel components, discs to shafts, driveshafts, gears to shafts, motor shafts, pipe to pipe segments, prop shafts, propeller shafts, round bar to pipe sections, round bar to round bar, round bar to tube, shaft to shaft segments, solid round to pipe, solid round to solid round, solid round to tube, stub shafts, tube to tube sections, turbines to shafts, and yokes to shafts.
As the largest full service, direct-drive, rotary friction welding shop in North America, AFW delivers an unmatched experience, quality, and support from design prototyping & customized solutions through full production.
Our experts are ready to discuss how our friction welding process can be applied to your current fabrication needs.
