Numerical Investigation of Laser Bending of Perforated Sheets

In this work, laser bending of perforated sheets has been investigated numerically. Laser bending of perforated sheets is more complicated than non-perforated sheets due to their complex geometries. In this paper, laser bending of perforated sheets is studied numerically in the form of thermo-mechanical analysis with ABAQUS/IMPLICIT code. For this purpose, the effects of process and sheet parameters such as laser output power, laser scanning speed, laser beam diameter and the number of punches in the sheet are investigated on the bending angle of laser formed perforated sheet. The results show that the larger punch diameters lead to decrease in bending angle in the laser formed perforated sheets. Also, it is concluded that the bending angle of the perforated sheet is decreased with increasing laser scanning speed. In addition, bending angle is decreased with decreasing laser beam diameter.