Coldwater Machine is contributing technology partner in LIFT

Coldwater Machine Co., Coldwater, Ohio, has announced it is an industry partner participating in the LIFT Consortium’s Processing and Properties Database for Refill Friction Stir Spot Welding of Aerospace Materials technology project.

This project, being led by Boeing and the Edison Welding Institute, will validate and further develop refill friction stir spot welding (RFSSW) using aerospace alloys. The outcome will be a standards database that includes process parameters and mechanical properties that help drive guidelines to provide product designers in the aerospace industry with the technical data to develop designs that can take advantage of RFSSW’s benefits.

Coldwater is experienced in the rotary friction welding of a variety of dissimilar materials as well as friction spot joining of 1000 to 8000 series aluminum. It is contributing to this project by testing RFSSW and documenting the data for joining aluminum grades to eliminate rivets and drive better process control for joining lightweight materials. The project is expected to be complete by October 2018.

LIFT, operated by the American Lightweight Materials Manufacturing Innovation Institute (ALMMII), is a public-private partnership to develop and deploy advanced lightweight materials manufacturing technologies and implement education and training programs to prepare the workforce.