FEM Simulation for Laser Forming Processing

摘要

Laser forming involves heating sheet metal workpiece along a certain path with a defocusedlaser beam directed normal to the surface. During laser forming, a transient temperature fields iscaused by the irradiation and traveling of a laser beam. Consequently, thermal expansion andcontraction take place, and allows the thermo-mechanical forming of complex shapes. This is a newmanufacturing technique that forming metal sheet only by thermal stress. Therefore, the analysis oftemperature fields and stress fields is very useful for studying the forming mechanism andcontrolling the accuracy of laser forming. The non-liner finite element solver, MARC , is employedto solve the thermal-mechanical analysis in this paper. Using this model, the stress and straindistribution of pure aluminum plate with different thickness are analyzed. The influence ofscanning speed on temperature fields and plastic strain of metal sheet under the condition ofconstant line energy are also presented. Numerical results agree well with the experimental results.