A new mixed-integrated approach to control welded flashes forming process of damping-tube–gland in continuous drive friction welding

The continuous drive friction welding technique is usually used to join damping-tube and gland. Generally, the inner friction welding flashes at the end of damping-tube are very harmful to the assembly of damping device and the cleanness of damping liquid, these thin and natural formed inner friction welding flashes are very easy to crack, break and form a large of metal particles on the special vibrating working conditions of damping-tube, these metal particles increase wearing damage and reduce the safety coefficient of the damping-tube. It is very difficult to deal with these inner friction welding flashes of the damping-tube, especially the diameter of the damping-tube is small. To address this problem, in this article, we propose a mixed-integrated approach, which includes adjusting the size of the covering of damping-tube, designing a new structure for the tube of damping-tube, applying a controlling mould in friction welding, and optimizing the parameters of the welding technology by friction torque–time method (MT method). This approach reduces the sum of the inner welding flashes, controls the crimping direction of the friction welding flashes, and promotes the forming of the outer friction welding flashes. The macrostructure of welding flashes and friction welded are analyzed, the experimental results show that proposed mixed-integrated approach eliminates the problems of the inner friction welding flashes in the damping-tube friction welding.