The Vanderbilt University Welding Automation Lab (VUWAL) conducts research in areas pertaining to welding and robotics. Currently research focuses on friction stir welding.
Friction stir welding (FSW) is a solid-state welding technique patented by TWI in 1991. Its use is becoming more and more prevalent in industry in areas such aerospace, railway rolling stock and naval construction.
Research at VUWAL focuses on a number of FSW topics such as conical and non-rotating tools for FSW, seam-tracking for FSW, FSW for metal-matrix composites, underwater FSW and FSW with heating.