Design of a Novel Integrated Ultrasonic Tool Holder for Friction Stir Welding

Ultrasonic vibration used in friction stir welding (FSW) has shown advantages in reducing welding defects and improving welding quality. How to design an ultrasonic tool holder is a challenge because the holder is rotating in a confined space. In this study, we design a 20 kHz integrated ultrasonic tool holder in FSW. This novel configuration can be applied in general machining equipment. The elastic modulus is measured by non-destructive acoustic testing to attain the precise frequency. Three FSW transducers with alloy steel are designed by the modal analysis and the transducer prototypes are fabricated. The effect of pre-tightening force on transducer frequency is investigated, where the prestress of the piezoelectric stack instead of the torque is tested to achieve an optimal working frequency. The vibration of the transducers is measured by a Doppler Vibrometer System. It proved that the resonant frequencies are well consistent between simulation model and the experiment by the elastic modulus testing and the pre-tightening optimization. Moreover, the experiment demonstrates that the vibration amplitude is significantly different, even in a slight difference of steel material properties are adopted. The dynamic performance of the designed transducers is acceptable by the vibration measurement.