Friction Welding Truck Banjo Axles

I installed a machine like this in Caterpillar Peoria. They friction welded two track pin housings together. It was very cool to watch. This is a precise science. The weld is 100% controllable by changing the RPM, the pressure pushing the two halves together, and the duration. Then it sheared off the excess while hot like they did here. Good video, nice music.

@1overthehillsfaraway ..now yur startin to get the picture...can't do no drilling till it's -40 below..it's carved in stone somewhere....American oil companies are flat out a bunch of morons....I totally agree...

@raginroadrunner your a hard worker though and I can respect that. I know what working with mud cold heat dust equipment problems, you name it. and logging ain't a get rich thing either you do it cause you love to be out in on the land. Drillers do it for the money cause theres so much profit in thats all. I'd never wanna work in the drillign industry cause theres to much drug use. meth mainly.

@raginroadrunner I think I saw you guys set up in the wintering grounds of one of my favorite elk/mule deer hunting spots on the s. end of the wind river range. Well, it used to be. Heard they let them bastards start working in the winter up towards the headwaters of the Green River. One of the prettiest places on the earth and they gotta go drilling up there.... some people just don't know whats important in this world.

@1overthehillsfaraway , the mud is warm under the rig but the temp is cold...and yes we had to have D9 Cats pull the rig up trucks onto location and yes if you got stranded out there you better build a big assed fire cause you would freeze to death trying to walk out MR Know it all!!! ...this ain't no tree cutting exercise..I've seen drill rigs lifted up off the ground by high pressure gas zones, drill rigs weighing hundreds of thousands of pounds. Now you know more than yu did...

@1overthehillsfaraway ..Apparently you have never been in the oilfields in the Rocky Mountains..that is for sure..what happens in the woods is one helluva lot different that what goes on in the oil patch..just for your information, the oilfields in the winter sometimes use massive hot water boilers to keep the drill floor clean...that hot assed water drains down into a mud pit, but some of it goes under the drill sub structure, sometimes we had to go under the sub and weld in hot mud!!!..MUD!!!

@raginroadrunner I've logged for 24+ years so mud and cold is not stranger to me, sounds like your a little bit into drama if you ask me. 2' of mud in -20 below... sorry but that is bullshit. Suppose you were standing on 1 leg in it while welding up a truck axle... and that was after you just walked to the job and then back home another 50 miles uphill both ways hey?

@1overthehillsfaraway..apparen tly you have never been around a drill rig in the Rocky Mountains in winter.....go give it a try....you'll understand then....RR

@raginroadrunner 2 feet of mud in -20 below... thats a good one!!

@raginroadrunner... Are u fuckn ragin stupid? This video is depicting a welding process OUTSIDE an enviroment that you came up with (outside, oil rig, 300K lbs of pipe, freezing mud). Obviously this friction welding would NOT apply in that scenario u creates, dumb ass! Your comment is akin to someone showing what a tacking hammer is uses for and you ignorantly stating, "that would never work like a sledgehammer breaking up concrete foundations." Moron!

@marrabooboo..not when the axle housing is still in the truck out in the oilfield loaded with 300,000 pds of drill steel in two feet of mud at 20 below zero it wouldn't..and with some asshole pusher screaming and yelling his ass of constantly... no..sorry Dude..your way off on that one...

@Spanky989 nothing, done it! not a lot happens

@raginroadrunner The axles in the video have to complete a fatigue test that flexes the housing at a pre determined load, they have to withstand millions of cycles and no other joining process has reached half of our result, this machine would weld both spindles on for a couple of dollars (Projected costing).

@drumzeppelin it depend on a lots of things, but if the metal is mild steel, the carbon content is so low that the cooling time doesn't change the characteristics of the metal significantly.

god that's so sexy

@Spanky989 it would steam up REALLY fast, and depending on where you were standing you might get burned. It's possible that would shock the metal as well, causing it to crack.

@Spanky989 probly cracking

@drumzeppelin You are correct - properties will not be identical. Most welding techniques end up with a micro-cyrstalline grain structure that looks like fast-freeze casting (because it is). But it's more than just the speed that it is cooled. It's almost certain that the materials were worked (drawn, forged, rolled, etc.), giving them a more refined structure than what will end up being in the weld.

Amazing!

my question is what with that metal waste (which is obviously recycled but still a chunk of waste that needs to be recycled) what is it's benefits of friction welding as to say, induction? maybe I am right as to say the bond is nearly perfect as it's 2 metals heated up and pressuried under far higher conditions than induction which is manually heated up and then pressed? (I don't study things but I understand by observing and having a pro back it up my thoughts)

@curtis133 Won't the properties not be identical? The metal is heated up to its re-crystallization point in order for it to weld right? So unless you cool it the same way that it had been cooled previously (which you can't, the metal around it will conduct heat at a different rate) it will have different material characteristics? As an engineering student I'm not saying you are wrong. It is just that, based on some of my materials classes, your statement seems to be incorrect.

you should be hired for "How it's Made" :p

looks like a some serious fast rotation and high pressure

seriously who would dislike this video?