Vibration welding quality control using piezoelectric shear stress transducers

The quality control (QC) of welded parts is a critical manufacturing step. Although QC can be performed on the finished part, identification of defects during the manufacturing process is preferred to minimize the value associated with defective parts. In this paper, the use of piezoelectric shear stress transducers mounted on vibration welding fixtures is presented as a real-time QC tool. Laboratory studies complemented with welding trials on industrial air-intake manifolds show that this technology can be used to identify defects such as incomplete weld beads.