Influence of forge pressure on properties of friction welded pipelines using intermediate ring

Abstract

An innovative welding method for fully automatic joining of pipelines has been developed. The proposed welding procedure is a variant of the conventional friction welding process. A rotating intermediate ring is used to generate heat necessary to realise the weld. The working principles of the welding process are described. The influence of the forge pressure on the mechanical properties of the welds and the heat affected zone microstructure was experimentally investigated. It was found that the forge pressure had no influence either on the mechanical properties or on the weld microstructure, which is in contradiction with the published data in literature concerning conventional friction welding.