Hello,

I am about to undertake my final year project for University. The topic being the impact friction stir welding has on the mechanical properties of a material in an aerospace application either compared to other joining methods or when subjected to different load types (This is to be decided on availability of physical materials).

For this I intend to do some Solidworks FEA analysis to support real testing.

My question is: How can I create a friction stir welded joint on Solidworks?

All I can manage are the options shown below, none of which are friction stir welds.

I have two pieces of aluminium alloy along side each other (as shown below) and wish to generate a friction stir weld (currently a square butt) along the seam.

Can anyone help me?

Thanks.

George.