 Other recent developments in welding include the 1958 breakthrough of electron beam welding , making deep and narrow welding possible through the concentrated heat source . Following the invention of the laser in 1960 , laser beam welding debuted several decades later , and has proved to be especially useful in high @-@ speed , automated welding . Magnetic pulse welding ( MPW ) is industrially used since 1967 . Friction stir welding was invented in 1991 by Wayne Thomas at The Welding Institute ( TWI , UK ) and found high @-@ quality applications all over the world . All of these four new processes continue to be quite expensive due the high cost of the necessary equipment , and this has limited their applications . 
