Numerical Investigation on Laser-Assisted Flow Forming Process

Abstract

Recent years laser-assisted manufacturing techniques are increasingly the focus of the automotive and aerospace industry due to cost price, low energy efficiency and safety. Among these techniques is laser-assisted flow forming process that combines laser beam technology with conventional flow forming process. During forming the material undergoes a rapidly heating and cooling cycles with the irradiative action of the laser beam, which is quite different from the traditional process. A transient three-dimensional model was developed to investigate the influence of laser irradiation on the forming process, in which a user-defined function was created to overcome the problem of a moving Gaussian heating source. The result indicates that a ring-shaped temperature field is acquired when the heating source scans workpiece along a thread; the deformation area on the workpiece during forming is extensively and continuously heated by intense laser radiation and the thermally induced loss of material strength significantly increases the formability concerning the achievable material reduction rate and tool service life; the possibility of accuracy improvement by laser assistance has been investigated and an accuracy error decreases 10%-28.5%.