User:Simon Smith
Simon Smith is a mechanical engineer. He has almost 40 years of hands on experience of the use of Finite Element (FEA) Analysis for the assessments of structural integrity. Simon was lucky to work with the inventor of Friction Stir Welding (Wayne Thomas) at the time that FSW was invented and then during the industrial development of the process.
Modelling of FSW
Simon led work on the development of models of FSW which included the use of FEA, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and mathematical formulae. He worked on the European collaborative project LOSTIR [1] and lead the project SPOTSTIR [2].
Simon developed a method of modelling FSW based on CFD that which can analyse a wide range of materials and welding conditions using easy to obtain materials data. This has a significant advantage over many modelling methods in which a considerable amount of materials data is needed to completely define models such as the Sellars-Tegart [3]. The model is also capable of determining the amount of heat generated during FSW without the need to use experimental data for calibration.
aiCAMstir
Simon works for Transforming Stress Ltd [4], one of the founding partners of aiCAMstir. Simon is keen to support the development of ancillary software for the real time processing of welding conditions and feedback to the machine control system.