Joining of Nano-Composite using Friction Stir Welding

Currently, there is widespread use of thermoplastics, light-weight materials and fiber-reinforced plastics in aerospace, automobile, medical, electronic and construction industry. The product development with such materials requires them to be joined to have desired size and shape. Among the joining techniques the Friction Stir Welding (FSW) is a newer welding process that joins the materials in the solid state by heating them by frictional and deformation heat and subsequently stir them across the interface. Recently FSW has been studied for thermoplastics. The present paper reports joining of Alumina-Polypropylene nano-composite pieces using the FSW. The tool rotation speed and the traverse speed are allowed to vary and the joints are produced. It is observed that the nano-composite under the identical conditions is comparatively easy to join then the pure polymer. This paper represents one of the first ever attempts on joining of polymer nano-composites using FSW and calls for more investigations into FSW of variety of nano-composites.