Friction Stir Additive Manufacturing—A Review

Abstract

Aerospace and automobiles provide a great potential to the development of metal additive manufacturing. Most of these techniques are fusion based and face the drawback of solidification issues and are not applicable for every alloy. Friction stir additive manufacturing (FSAM) is a family of novel techniques that utilizes friction stir welding principle for layer-by-layer additive manufacturing of materials. This technology is revered to be a breakthrough in the field of metal additive manufacturing (MAM) due to the advantages of solid-state welding which are intrinsic to these processes. The paper highlights the recent developments in the much uncharted field of friction stir additive manufacturing, introduces the major technologies of the FSAM and underscores the advantages of FSAM over its fusion-based counterparts. The paper also throws a light on the outlook and the potential of FSAM technologies in the domain of industrial manufacturing. The paper sums up by presenting some of the noteworthy research works done in this field.