Many automotive engineers have nightmares about noise, vibration and harshness (NVH) issues. Ironically, one of those pests—vibration—is widely used to assemble many types of plastic auto parts.
Vibration welding, a cousin of ultrasonic welding, is a popular assembly process because it has many advantages. It can join similar and dissimilar thermoplastics. Vibration welding can also assemble parts produced in different ways, such as blow molding, injection molding or 3D printing.