FACILITIES & CAPABILITIES

Advanced Joining & ProcessingThe Advanced Joining and Processing Laboratory is located on NIAR's main WSU campus facility. The lab occupies nearly 4,000 square feet of space with garage-door access. Within the lab is an enclosed employee and client workspace and meeting area, a metallurgy lab, an MTS load frame and the lab's center of focus, a state-of-the-art MTS FSW machine.

Facilities:

  • 3,930 sq. ft laboratory
  • MTS ISTIR PDS 5-axis motion, 7-axis force monitoring friction stir welding machine, 120-inch x 40-inch x 25-inch work envelope

Capabilities:

  • Ability to perform multiple joint configurations such as butt and lab joints in aluminum alloys up to 5/16”in. thickness
  • Prototype development and pilot production of complex curvature structures using FSW
  • Material and structural testing and analysis of structures utilizing FSW
  • Ability to provide multi-axis FSW research and development tools for technology transfer into the industrial sector
  • Ability to join and process high temperature materials such as nickel aluminum bronze, steel and titanium
  • Ability to perform self-reacting FSW
  • Corrosion testing
  • Automatic microhardness testing/mapping
  • Metallography testing and analysis
  • Friction stir spot welding