Development of an automated wood welding process

Friction welding of wood is an active field of research and would seem to be a potential joining technology in wood industries in the near future. Despite numerous scientific publications in this field, automated industrial applications of this technique are not common up to now. In this paper, we developed an automated welding process that can be easily implemented in industry. The use of beech wood samples is motivated because (i) this species is abundant in the forest resource, (ii) the anatomical structure is homogeneous and therefore highly suitable for the welding process and (iii) the average wood density is high. For the welding process, a sequential control was developed and four different welding modes were applied. We tested four welding modes with a constant rotation speed of the drilling machine (1800 t.mn). During the dowel insertion, the linear displacement was tested for two different constant speeds and for two varying speeds. The results of the pull-out strength test show that the forces during the welding process as well as the strength of the joints produced differ depending on the welding mode. Based on the results it can be recommended that a two-step welding process is applied for wood welding. With the two steps, the forces at the welding machine are kept low and the quality of the joint is high. The sequential control developed can be applied and adapted for different industrial applications. These findings should convince industrial decision-makers of the applicability of this process for daily production. © 2014 Taylor & Francis.