Correction of Distortion and Design Shape in Aluminium Structures Using Laser Forming

The correction of distortion and design shape in manufactured components is increasingly in demand in industry, in particular for aluminium components, where the applications for aluminium and its alloys continue to expand. A process capable of achieving these actions in an automated, controlled and precise manner would be of significant benefit to industry. Due to these factors a study has been conducted on the use of laser forming (LF) as a method of automated distortion correction. Investigations were carried out into the use of purely geometrical data from a component as a basis for scan strategy development. The iterative error based method developed as part of this was shown to be a significant step towards controlled 3D LF and, as this method relies on the error between a component and a design shape, it was shown to be ideal for the correction of unwanted distortion.