PROVO, Utah — Brigham Young University students and Toyota are working on a breakthrough development engineering that could change how cars are manufactured.
BYU Associate Professor of Manufacturing Engineering, Dr. Yuri Hovanski, says Refill Friction Stir Spot Welding is the future.
“From an energy standpoint and from the material, enabling this allows us to use materials that were very difficult for us to use before and at the same time has a significant lower impact from an environmental,” Hovanski explained.
This process could also help Toyota and other manufacturers meet a mandate that the auto industry not only make their vehicles more efficient but also make the manufacturing process cleaner.
To reduce vehicle weight, car manufacturers are increasingly ditching steel in favor of lighter-weight aluminum. However, the current welding process, resistance spot welding, presents challenges since it was designed for steel.
Since aluminum has a higher thermal conductivity and low melting point, it has a smaller window of workability than other metals and can easily lead to burn-through.
Dr. Hovanski says refill friction stir spot welding uses 40 times less energy, emits fewer emissions, and produces welds that are 10 times stronger.
It joins the metal without ever melting it. Pressure is applied and a pin is inserted into the metal, softened by friction. The two sheets of aluminum are stirred together with a tool, and when pressure is released, the hole fills in, leaving a strong-quality joint.
“We do a lot of evaluation of the welds afterwards,” Taylor Smith, BYU
senior and mechanical engineering student, said. “We do CT scanning, tensile testing, fatigue testing, we test the hardness of the inside of the welds so that we can really see what's going on.”
In helping develop this technique at the Roland A. Crabtree Technology Building, Dr. Hovanski says these BYU engineering students are getting real-world experience with major manufacturers before they even graduate.
“I really love seeing the application of what I learned in the classroom,” said Taylor. “I can go to class and run all the equations and learn about the theory, but this is where it actually matters.”
Taylor adds that this experience is also teaching them to take theoretical work and use it to find real-world solutions to current production problems.
“It shows the impact that even students can have, Taylor said. “That we can research, we can make a difference in the world by finding these kinds of technologies and ways to apply them."
