Abstract
Friction stir welding (FSW) experiments with different panel dimensions and welding parameters have been designed to study the distortion of FSW. The FSW experiments were carried out with a load control facility to make the welding parameters reliable. The distortion of FSW is much smaller than that of arc welding, but it is still very significant. Three-dimensional distortion measuring system was applied to further study distortion trends. The results show that the distortion after FSW is in saddle shape, with convex bending in longitudinal direction and concave bending in transverse direction. This distortion pattern is in contrary with that of traditional arc welding. It is also found that increasing the panel length increases the longitudinal distortion but almost do not influence the transverse distortion. Increasing the rotation speed increases both longitudinal distortion and transverse distortion. The influence of welding speed on distortion is not very clear.