As part of an ongoing process to fully evaluate the potential for friction stir welding (FSW) to be used in the shipbuilding industry, a comparison has been made between two variants of the process. 8mm thick DH36 steel plate was friction stir welded using a single sided and a double sided process. An assessment of the processes was made to report on the resultant distortion behaviour, hardness, yield strength, toughness and microstructure. As a further comparison, additional work on 8mm thick submerged arc welded (SAW) DH36 plate has been included as the current shipbuilding benchmark. The overall process feasibility will be assessed including the issue of the requirement to rotate the workpiece through 180° to complete the second side of the double sided process
