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Plastics are the engineering materials for future technological development. Advances in plastics processing and fabrication techniques have facilitated the production of novel plastics devices and components in major business sectors such as the automotive, medical and packaging industries. Reviews the current techniques available for welding plastics material and highlights their advantages, limitations and stage of development.

The latest developments in the use of lasers for welding plastics are reviewed. Lasers were demonstrated as being suitable for welding plastics in 1970. However, it is only now that they are finding wide application following technical developments in transmission laser welding and ClearWeld™, and the availability of small, economic diode laser systems.

TWI was established in 1946 as the BWRA, later The Welding Institute, and from its very outset was focused on the study of joining technology and its impact on the performance and structural integrity of components. With a staff of some 450, TWI represents a unique multidisciplinary resource, which provides expertise to over 3,000 companies worldwide. Welding can influence various factors in the performance of plant and equipment; naturally, therefore, corrosion behaviour has been a major technology for both research and consultancy at TWI for more than five decades. This article reviews some of the issues and areas of current research at TWI appropriate to pipelines.

This paper focuses on some of the presentations given at a technical workshop on “Laser processing of polymer‐based materials”, organised by Association of Industrial Laser Users. Applications in cutting and welding are discussed and specifically how different combinations of polymer materials and laser types produce different results. Applications are described that include pre‐weakening of car trims for integrated airbags and “on the fly” scribing of web materials used in packaging. In several of these applications, robots play an important role in manipulating the laser beam.

TWI, as The Welding Institute prefers to be called these days, is one of the success stories of the late 1980s. At a time when many research associations were suffering decline TWI has expanded both technically and commercially. At its open days last June it presented an air of quiet confidence to its many visistors.