Laser-Assisted Bending

Abstract

When sheets of high-strength (HS) and ultra-high-strength (UHS) steels are bent by a press brake the process suffers from large bending forces, considerable springback, and eventual cracks. Additionally, some unpredictable effects, such as lost contact to the punch, caused by strain hardening may occur producing a bend with erroneous radii. The strain hardening of the bending line may make further processes, such as forming or welding, more complex. One solution to these problems is to anneal the bending line with a laser in advance. Of course, it is also possible to utilise other types of heat sources, but the laser can offer the most precisely controlled heat treatment. The proper process parameters depend on the material, and it has been noticed that inadequate process parameters may harden the material instead of annealing. In this work some experiments on bending sheet metal samples of HS or UHS steel with previously laser-annealed bending lines have been carried out and the outcome analysed. The results show that the annealing produces better bending results compared to the conventional procedure. This includes lower springback, less hardening in the bending line and more precise geometry of the bend. It can be even suggested that proper annealing with strain hardening in bending will produce the original material structure. Obviously, more theoretical and experimental work is required to optimise the process parameters including the laser power and speed for each pair of material strength and thickness.