A novel method for laser forming of two-step bending of a dome shaped part

Abstract

In recent decades, one of the challenges in sheet metal forming was production of two-step bending surfaces without mechanical tools and external force or by a combination of heat source and mechanical tools. Forming with a heat source such as laser beam has the potential for forming arbitrary 3D shapes such as two-step bending surfaces. In this paper a novel method for laser forming of complicated two-step bending dome shaped part is proposed. The initial sheets are made from mild steel with thickness of 0.85 mm. In this method, combination of simple straight lines leads to production of a two-step bending dome shaped part. The results of this paper show that the proposed method is a powerful irradiating scheme for production of two-step bending dome shapes with considerable deformations and symmetries. In addition, using an analytical study the mechanics of plate deformation is precisely investigated. All of investigations are performed experimentally and numerically and it is shown that numerical results are in good agreement with experimental observations.