Pedal Powered Inertia Welder

An inertia friction welder powered by a bicycle. Built in 2 months and at a cost of £302. Finished and run for the first time at around 6pm GMT, Saturday 15th December. Thanks go to Andy for the welding, Steevo for the machining, Martin for grafting, Greg for filming and squeaking, Graeme for his yard and cups of tea, JCB for the use of their workshop and Bolton Steam Museum for the flywheel.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Specialized
• Google
• innovateordie
• pedal
• power
• friction
• welder
• welding
• inertia
• flywheel
• human
• powered
• contest

[marrabooboo]

do you guys work for JCB?

[mikeha11]

Yeah - two of the team do, along with a few others that are also in the video. The other member of the team works for Rolls Royce.

[marrabooboo]

I have a question, why did you inertia friction weld aluminium together with pedal power in the first place? Was it a bet?

[mikeha11]

It was for a competition on the innovative application of pedal power. Sadly the organisers thought generating electricity to power a computer was more innovative despite the fact that, at least to my knowledge, this has never been done before with human power. The aluminium welded more easily than we thought - we have sorted out the alignment issues and are sorting out the off centre cog on the top shaft - which out hasty tig-welder didn't line up quite right.

[mikeha11]

...This should make the drive to the lathe much smoother and stop the chain flapping around (the source of all that noise) as well as allow us to get the flywheel up to a higher top speed. We plan to try other materials including Steel, Nickel and Magnesium

[AmericanFabricator]

There is hope for fabricators after the world ends. LOL

[Avalikia]

That's fantastic! Welding can consume a huge amount of energy, so to be able to weld at all with just one bicycle's worth of power is very impressive. Definately has some bugs to work out, but very promising.

[radicaldan0]

That is just amazing! Good use of the ole grey matter.

[fritzkat]

looks like a factory jag part.just step the fuck away from the tools

[marrabooboo]

Ok well good luck with that, if you tell me the material specification and the diameter I'll recommend the rotational speed and axial trust load you should be aiming for. I think you will struggle with steel as the required weld intensities are much greater than that of aluminium. I have a few recommendations; your chances of success would be greatly increased if you used tube to tube weld geometry as long as your TIR is acceptable. There are others but I only have 500 characters.....

[marrabooboo]

Friction welding steel is not a problem providing that the parent material does not contain high levels of sulphur or lead that can have a lubricating property in the weld interface when heat is induced between the masticating surfaces. In some steels and with the correct applied parameters the resulting weld will be stronger than the material itself.

[mylarjorgen]

Friction welding, great idea, does it work on steel? Also, the sound-track needs a bit of work.