A method linear friction welds a rotor blade to a disk. The method includes: providing a linear friction welding machine having disk tooling at which a disk is mounted, and further having blade tooling at which a blade is mountable; mounting a dummy blade at blade tooling, dummy blade carrying one or more first measurement devices which interact with mounted disk to measure position of dummy blade relative to disk; adjusting position and orientation of blade tooling relative to mounted disk until first measurement devices indicate that dummy blade is in a suitable alignment with disk to start linear friction welding a blade to disk; releasing dummy blade from blade tooling and mounting a production blade thereat; and linear friction welding the production blade to the disk with the blade tooling starting at adjusted position and orientation.

A method for a steer axle knuckle of a vehicle is provided. The method comprises welding a steer arm and a tie rod arm to a knuckle body by linear friction welding. The method further includes, in one example, pairing a plurality of first contact surfaces of the knuckle body and a plurality of steer arm contact surfaces of the steer arm prior to the welding; pairing a plurality of second contact surfaces of the knuckle body and a plurality of tie rod arm contact surfaces of the tie rod arm prior to the welding. Each of the plurality of first contact surfaces, second contact surfaces, steer arm contact surfaces, tie rod arm contact surfaces is machined prior to the welding.

Disclosed is a method of making an integrally bladed rotor. According to the method, a rotor disk comprising a radially outer rim surface is provided. A portion of the disk outer rim surface is removed, leaving a protrusion on the rotor disk outer rim surface. The disk with material removed is subjected to thermal processing. A blade comprising an airfoil and a base is positioned such that a base surface is in contact with the protrusion, and heat, pressure, and motion are applied between the blade and the disk to friction weld the base surface to the protrusion.

Disclosed is a method of making an integrally bladed rotor. According to the method, a titanium alloy rotor disk with 15-50% by volume of primary alpha grains with a grain size less than 10 m and secondary alpha grains comprising widmanstatten grains with a grain size less than 1.0 m is subjected to thermal processing. After thermal processing, a blade having an airfoil and a base is positioned such that a base surface is in contact with an outer rim surface of the disk. Heat, pressure, and motion are applied between the blade and the disk to friction weld the base surface to the disk outer rim surface.

A method and apparatus for friction welding. The method includes frictionally engaging a weld surface of a first workpiece and a weld surface of a second workpiece; oscillating the weld surface of the first workpiece and the second workpiece until they reach a fusion point, and applying a forge force to the first workpiece with the second workpiece, so that the workpieces are urged into contact at a weld point, wherein the weld point is the centroid of an interface between the weld surfaces.

A method of operating a linear friction welding system in one embodiment includes positioning a phase change assembly driven by a motor in different configurations to establish different phase relationships between two eccentrically engaged power shafts while one of the power shafts is driven by the motor and the other power shaft is driven by the phase change assembly. In one phase change assembly configuration a ram operably connected to one of two components to be welded does not vibrate when the first power shaft and the second power shaft rotate while in another phase change assembly configuration the ram vibrates. Pressure between the two components is controlled to provide scrub pressure when the ram vibrates and forge pressure when the ram is no longer vibrating.

A method of making an integrally bladed rotor is disclosed. The method includes providing a rotor disk comprising a radially outer rim surface that includes a recessed area thereon. A blade having an airfoil and a base is positioned such that a base surface is in contact with the recessed area with a gap between the base surface and the recessed area at a perimeter of the recessed area. Heat, pressure, and motion between the blade and the rotor disk are applied to friction weld the base surface to the recessed area.

The present application relates to a method for producing a housing for an axial turbomachine compressor having a metal sheet with annular rows of stator blades which are welded to the metal sheet. The method includes the steps of: (a) providing or producing a planar metal sheet with a step of machining in order to form blade stumps; (b) welding stator blades of friction to one of the planar faces of the metal sheet, the blades being arranged so as to form parallel straight rows of blades; (c) bending the metal sheet about a bending axis perpendicular to each row of blades, so as to form a half-tube with annular half-rows of blades which are axially spaced apart, and producing annular grooves by rolling; (d) welding annular flanges and axial flanges; (e) application of annular layers of abradable material.

A friction welding method includes: applying axial force to first and second metallic components so as to force the components against each other at an interface therebetween, while oscillating the two components relative to each other in a cyclic motion, so as to generate friction and heat at the interface; rapidly stopping the cyclic motion; and applying a spike in the axial force to complete a weld between the first and second components.

Solid-state joining of preformed features, such as bosses, flanges, gaskets, centralizers and other features to substrates or cast parts by a solid-state MELD additive manufacturing process is disclosed. Joining can be between same or different materials using same, similar or dissimilar filler material than the materials of the feature and the part that need to be joined.