Marine In The Thick Plate Laser Bending Forming Simulation

Laser forming is a promising technology in manufacturing, such as in the automobile, shipbuilding, and aerospace industries. The process utilizes the thermal stress induced by laser irradiation to form sheet metal into different shapes. The local nature of laser irradiation yields high temperature gradients between the irradiated surface and the neighboring material. The temperature distribution makes the material to expand non-uniformly, thus leading to non-uniform thermal stresses. When the thermal stresses exceed the yield point of the material, the material deforms plastically.The laser forming process has been simulated numerically. For the analysis, the finite element code 'MSC.Marc' is used. A 3-D FEM simulation has been carried out, which includes a coupled thermal-structural analysis accounting for the temperature dependency of the thermal and mechanical properties of the materials. The proposed model is capable of calculating the time-dependent temperatures, stresses and strains during the laser forming process. It can also predict the final bending angle of shipbuilding plates.An experiment was carried out to valid the numerical simulation. The sheet metal of different thickness had been performed for different scanning speeds and laser powers. The measurement of real-time temperature and bending angle was carried out. The bending angle is affected by the mechanical and thermal properties of the sheet metal material, the processing parameters, and the output of laser energy. The bending angle is increased with the number of laser beam scanning passes and is the function of the laser power and the laser beam scanning speed. The simulation results are in agreement with the experimental results.