Experimental analysis of sheet metal micro-bending using a nanosecond-pulsed laser

摘要

Laser shock bending is a sheet metal micro-forming process using shock waves induced by a nanosecond-pulsed laser. It is developed to accurately bend, shape, precision align, or repair micro-components with bending angles less than 10°. Negative bending angle (away from laser beam) can be achieved with the high-energy pulsed laser, despite the conventional positive laser bending mechanism. In this research, various experimental and numerical studies on aluminum sheets are conducted to investigate the different deformation mechanism, positive or negative. The experiments are conducted with the sheet thickness varying from 0.25 to 1.75 mm and laser pulse energy of 0.2 to 0.5 J. A critical thickness threshold of 0.7-0.88 mm is found that the transition of positive-negative bending mechanism occurs. A statistic regression analysis is developed to determine the bending angle as a function of laser process parameters for positive bending cases.