Abstract
Laser beam forming, a non-contact manufacturing
process has become a viable manufacturing process for shaping
metallic components. The capability of laser beam forming and
bending demands more experimental studies to identify an optimized
parameter setting and the likely parameters influencing the formed
curvature. This paper investigates experimental laser beam forming
of Ti6Al4V titanium alloy using a 4.4 kW Nd: YAG laser and studied
the effects of the process parameters on the formed curvature. It was
established that an increase in both the laser beam power and the
number of scan tracks reduces the radius of curvature in the formed
sheets having a more dome shape. The scan speed on the other hand,
achieved the same good curvature at a slower or reduced scan speed
to allow enough laser – material interaction. Furthermore, both the
ANOVA and the regression analysis confirmed the repeatability of
the experimental data. A simple regression model was developed
based on the known active parameters to determine approximate
curvatures instead of running a series of experiments.