Height prediction of dome-shaped products in laser forming process

Abstract

Laser forming is a thermal forming process, which uses laser beam irradiation to produce desired final forms. Initially, many researchers have investigated deeply in bending sheet metals using a straight scan pass. In this manuscript, a spider scanning strategy is considered to produce the dome-shaped aluminum sheet products. In this regard, laser forming process is investigated numerically and then some experiments are performed in order to validate the output results of numerical simulations. Full factorial design of experiments and analysis of variance are conducted to obtain an equation for predicting dome height of sheet metals. In addition, the effects of process parameters including laser power, scan velocity, beam diameter, and sheet thickness on dome height are studied. Moreover, the effects of heat flux, and line energy is investigated. The results show that with increasing laser power, line energy, and heat flux, dome height increases and with increasing beam diameter, sheet thickness, and scan velocity, dome height decreases notably. In addition, a final equation is presented which accurately predicts the dome height as a function of input process parameters.