Thompson friction welding

By: Lawrence Darby and Ches Honey (both Thompson Friction Welding)

Brief history

Thompson later moved to its present headquarters in Halesowen where it continued to build its renowned reputation for producing friction welding machines for the manufacture of automotive components. It became part of the IWKA Group in 1993.

Fig.1. Thompson's headquarters in Halesowen © 2001, Thompson

Fig.2. Thompson's friction welded components © 2001, Thompson

One of Thompson's first automotive customers was Ford, who purchased a Thompson machine for friction welding rear axle tubes and flanges to make Salisbury axle cases for models such as the Escort, Cortina and Corsair at their Dagenham plant.

Today, Thompson machines are not only used to produce parts for cars and trucks but also for agricultural and construction machines as well as rock drilling equipment and electrical components. The machines are supplied to numerous blue chip companies throughout the world.

Thompson friction welding machines are available in a range of forge capacities from 8 to 250 tonnes. Thompson also provides other associated services including metallurgical analysis, product development, manufacture of machines, tooling and automation together with sub-contract friction welding facilities.

Company's contributions for the EuroStir^® project

• To provide metallurgical and mechanical testing of friction stir welding
• To establish a friction stir welding machine within Thompson's sub-contract department
• To apply Thompson's state-of-the-art friction welding monitoring system knowledge to a similar system for friction stir welding

Lists of Thompson's services and equipment

Table 1: Available services

Table 2: List of equipment suitable for friction stir welding development work and trials

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Copyright © 2001, TWI Ltd