EXPERIMENTAL AND NUMERICAL INVESTIGATION ON LASER BENDING PROCESS

Laser bending is an advanced process in sheet metal forming in which a laser heat source is used to shape the metal sheet. In this paper, temperature distribution in a mild steel sheet metal is investigated numerically and experimentally. Laser heat source is applied through curved paths in square sheet metal parts. Finite element (FE) simulation is performed with the ABAQUS/CAE standard software package. Material property of AISI 1010 is used in FE model and experiments. The aim of this study is to identify the response related to deformation and characterize the effect of laser power with respect to the bending angle for a square sheet part. An experimental setup including a Nd:YAG laser Model IQL-10 with maximum mean laser power of 500 W is used for the experiments to verify FE analysis results. It is observed that numerical results are relatively in good agreement with the experimental results. Results also show that increasing laser power increases the bending angle.