Laser micro-bending process based on the characteristic of the laser polarization

Abstract

The laser polarization is a basic characteristic of CO 2 and solid-state lasers. The material's absorptivity to laser is dependent upon the laser incident angle. Thus, the laser polarization can be utilized to control the bending angle by changing the laser incident angle during laser bending. The laser polarization is introduced into laser micro-bending, and an experimental system is established. Laser micro-bending process based on the characteristic of the laser polarization is realized. For uncoated stainless steel specimen, the bending angles acquired at bigger incident angles are bigger than those acquired at zero incident angles. The bending angles increase linearly with the increase of the incident angle when the incident angle changes from 60° to 80°. During laser multi-scan bending, the final bending angle no longer varies with the scanning number, and approximately equals to the complement angle of the incident angle when it approaches to the complement angle. By means of adjusting the laser incident angle and scanning velocity, unfinished and finishing laser bending can be realized to satisfy the forming efficiency and accuracy. The absolute error between the final bending angle and the expected angle is less than 0.1°.