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Optics & Laser Technology 36 (2004) 431 439

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Laser-induced vibration during pulsed laser forming

Hsieh-Shen Hsieh, Jehnming Lin
Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan 701, Taiwan
Received 5 March 2003; received in revised form 12 November 2003; accepted 24 November 2003

Abstract
In this study, the vibration phenomenon during pulsed laser forming of thin metal plates was investigated numerically and experimentally.
The metal plates were made of 304 stainless steel and were heated by a CO2 Gaussian laser beam with a long pulse duration of 0:1 s,
which incited vibration due to the elasticplastic deformation of the specimen. This uncoupled thermalmechanical problem was solved
using a three-dimensional 4nite element method and was subsequently satisfactorily veri4ed with experiments. Using the superposition
method with multiple laser pulses, the non-linear vibration phenomenon during pulsed laser forming has also been observed experimentally
for thin plates.
? 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Pulsed laser forming; Laser-induced vibration

1. Introduction
Laser forming is a new form of laser technology, which
allows a metal sheet to be stressed thermally under a controlled laser beam heat source without the use of a mold or
forming press. When the laser forming technique is applied
to micro-parts manufacturing, substrate vibration occurs due
to the lack of damping and clamping arrangements. Similar problems have been observed in other pulsed laser applications such as laser trimming and laser micro-welding
for miniature devices. Therefore, the unpredictable deformation and dynamic characteristics of a thin metal sheet under
these modern manufacturing technologies are increasingly
important.
The forming mechanism of a metal sheet of complex
geometry under laser radiation has been analyzed using
various computational software based on the 4nite element
method (FEM), and the main focus was on the in>uence of
material properties, the beam mode and the heating paths of
the laser. A few studies have been carried out on stationary
pulsed laser forming, that is, based on the quasi-static analysis [13]. The scarcity of studies is possibly due to the dif4culty in analyzing the comparatively smaller heat-aAected
area, particularly during the transient phase of the
Corresponding author. Tel.: +886-6-2757575x62100;
fax: +886-6-235-2973.
E-mail address: linjem@mail.ncku.edu.tw (J. Lin).

0030-3992/$ - see front matter ? 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.optlastec.2003.11.005

deformation process. It is, therefore, unsurprising that the

dynamic behavior of a thin metal sheet under pulsed laser
beam is to date still unclear. In the available literature, however, the focus was mainly on the stress wave phenomenon
of the substrate under laser radiation [46]. The macroscopic view of the dynamic response such as vibration has
never been carefully considered in any laser-assisted forming process. As far as the authors are concerned, only a
brief mention of some related experimental work was made
by Widlaszewski [7] in 1997. Other relevant studies were
carried out by three groups of researches. Philip [8] studied
the elastic vibration problem in the single pulse excitation
of the structure by laser radiation. Chen [9] calculated the
bending angle of laser forming, using FEM by assuming
2-D plane strain and a line shape heating source, and the 4nal deformation predictions were compared with the experimental results. More recently, in 1999 and 2000, Castellini
simulated the laser-induced vibration problem with a
FEM implicit algorithm [10,11], considering only elastic
deformation.
In this study, the vibration problem of a 304 stainless-steel
thin plate subjected to a long pulse beam radiation during
pulse laser forming has been studied. The inertia eAect
and elastic/plastic deformation were both considered in the
numerical simulation using the 3-D FEM code, ABAQUS.
Experimentally, the deformation and vibration of the specimen were measured with a laser displacement sensor. By
applying multiple pulses with various pulse widths, the

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H. Hsieh, J. Lin / Optics & Laser Technology 36 (2004) 431 439

waveform of the superposition was measured which

con4rmed the non-linearity of the system.

2. Numerical simulation
Laser forming, as with other laser material processing
applications such as laser heat treatment, involves many
non-linear physical phenomena that include temperature
distribution, stress 4eld and microstructure variation, all
of which are signi4cantly inter-related. When compared
with the input laser beam energy, the heat generation due
to the strain energy in the bending process is negligible. Therefore, to simplify the analysis, the laser forming
problem herein will be decoupled by two distinct analytical models: the thermal model and the mechanical
model. This essentially means that the temperature and
the stress 4elds can be solved separately in the numerical
analysis.
The dimensions of the 304 stainless-steel specimens in
the analysis were 140 mm 10 mm 0:5 mm as illustrated
in Fig. 1. A CO2 laser beam was then delivered through a
concave lens forming a beam spot onto the upper surface of
the specimen.
3-D quadratic brick elements C3D8R and DC3D8 were
adopted in the simulation, where C3D8R is an 8-node linear
brick element with reduced-integration points and leads to
uncontrolled distortion of the mesh; DC3D8 is an 8-node
linear brick element without any control of the integration
points [12].
The domain meshing used for the thermal and mechanical models were the same, but the element type DC3DR
was for calculating the temperature and C3D8R was for
calculating the stress and displacement of the laser forming
problem. Fig. 2 shows the computational domain with the
meshes, where a 4ne mesh was applied around the laser
beam to analyze the steep temperature gradients around
the heating zone. The specimen consisted of 2240 elements. Due to the geometric symmetry of the computational
domain, the analysis was further simpli4ed to half the
domain.
Z

Y
clamp

laser beam

0.5mm

140mm
10mm

Fig. 1. Con4gurations of the laser forming process.

The temperature-dependent non-linear properties such as

the thermal expansion coeLcient, heat conduction coeLcient, speci4c heat, density, yielding strength, and Youngs
modulus of 304 stainless steels have all been considered in the simulation [13,14]. The relationships of the
temperature-dependent properties used in the simulation are
shown in Fig. 14 of the appendix.
3. Thermal analysis
3.1. Assumptions
In the numerical simulation of the laser forming process,
the following assumptions were made in the thermal analysis:
(1) The temporal distribution of the pulsed laser beam is
a step function.
(2) The laser intensity distribution is Gaussian mode.
(3) Heat conduction in the specimen and free convection
in the surrounding air are considered, but thermal
radiation is neglected.
(4) The heating phenomena due to phase changes and
strain energy are neglected.
3.2. Initial and boundary conditions
A circular laser beam with a Gaussian mode that passes
through a concave lens will condense into a beam spot.
Therefore, it can be expressed as


2
q
x + y2
Is (x; y) =
;
(1)
exp

w2
w2
where Is (x; y) is the laser intensity distribution (W=m2 );  is
the absorptivity of the specimen, w is the radius of the laser
beam spot (m), and q is the laser power (W).
Numerous factors aAect the re>ection coeLcient and they
include the roughness of the specimen surface, the thickness
of the oxidized layer, the surface temperature and so on. For
simplifying the computation,  is taken as an average of 0.6
for 304 stainless steels [15].
The initial temperature T (x; y; z; 0) was assumed to be the
ambient temperature T , and T = 25 C. Due to the symmetry of the computational domain, the boundary condition
at z = 0 on the xy plane of the specimen was treated as
adiabatic, i.e. k@T=@n = 0. Since thermal radiation was neglected, heat convection on the surface of the specimen to the
surrounding air can be expressed as k@T=@n = h(T T ),
where the coeLcient of the heat convection was quoted as
h = 21 W=m2 C [16].
According to the initial thermal boundary conditions and
material properties, the transient temperature distribution
was solved with the heat >ux over the node of the elements
in the laser interaction area by ABAQUS, which was then
substituted into the mechanical model for stress analysis.

H. Hsieh, J. Lin / Optics & Laser Technology 36 (2004) 431 439

433

Fig. 2. Computational domain and meshes.

4. Stress analysis
4.1. Assumptions
The following assumptions were made in the stress simulation of the laser forming process [8].
(1) The material is isotropic.
(2) The Bauschingers eAect is neglected.
(3) The material is incompressible when plastically
deformed.
(4) The material is elasticperfectly plastic.
(5) Strain rate eAects are neglected due to a relatively long
pulse duration and low-power laser radiation.
4.2. Initial and boundary conditions
The specimen was annealed by heat treatment therefore
its initial condition was assumed to be stress-free. Fig. 1
illustrates the boundary conditions in the stress analysis.
The specimen was clamped on one end, hence the boundary
condition there was fully constrained. Due to symmetry,
there will not be any displacement on the xz plane in the
central line. In summary,
uy (x; y; z; t) = 0;

y = 5 mm;

ux (x; y; z; t) = 0;

x = 0 mm;

uy (x; y; z; t) = 0;

x = 0 mm;

uz (x; y; z; t) = 0;

x = 0 mm;

(2)

where ux ; uy , and uz are the displacements in the x-,y-, and

z-axis, respectively.
The transient stress and strain responses were assumed to be quasi-static at each time interval and the
thermo-elastoplastic model was associated with the plastic
>ow rule and von Mises yielding criterion was used (Fig. 2).
5. Numerical results
In the 4rst stage of the numerical analysis, the following
process parameters were selected: the specimen thickness

was 0:5 mm, the laser power was 200 W, the pulse duration
was 0:1 s, the cooling time was 0:3 s, the laser beam spot was
3 mm and the beam spot was applied at a distance of 70 mm
from the free end, which was at the middle of the specimen.
The computational results of the temperature distribution in
the longitudinal direction of the substrate at various time
steps are shown in Fig. 3. It is clear that the temperature
on the upper surface rapidly increases during heating by the
laser. The maximum temperature at the laser beam center
achieved is about 496 C at the end of the pulse duration
of 0:1 s, which is still signi4cantly below the melting point
of the 304 stainless steel. Due to the rapid diAusion of the
heat into the surrounding materials in the laser radiation
zone, the specimen temperature gradually reduces to room
temperature.
Based on the above operation parameters, displacements due to the vibration were computed for two locations, i.e., at the free end (140 mm) and 50 mm to
the clamping end of the specimen and the results are
shown in Fig. 4. A signi4cant thermal expansion occurs
in the laser heat-aAected zone, which induces a bending
moment forcing the free end downward. Since displacement corresponds to the temperature gradient at the laser
heat-aAected zone, the lowest position of the movement
occurs after the pulse duration. In the case where the
free end is subjected to an excitation of the laser heating, the plastic deformation with upward displacement
is obtained by a local stress state larger than the yielding stress in the laser heat-aAected zone. As illustrated in
Fig. 5 for the case with laser heating at a distance from
the clamped end, it can be seen that the fundamental
mechanism of the vibration induced during laser forming
is simply caused by the bending moment from uneven
temperature and stress distributions during laser heating.
During the rapidly cooling stage, the clamped end moves
upward with an unbending moment. As shown in Fig. 4,
an upward displacement is observed at the start of laser
heating. At the same time, the bending moment generates
a downward displacement at the free end but upward displacement in the opposite end to the laser heat-aAected
zone. After the heat >ux has been removed, the vibration

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H. Hsieh, J. Lin / Optics & Laser Technology 36 (2004) 431 439

Fig. 3. Computational results of the temperature distribution in the longitudinal direction of the substrate at various time steps.

0.4

Displacement (mm)

0.2

-0.2

Heating Time = 0.1 s

Power = 200 W
Thickness = 0.5 mm
Spot size = 4 mm
50mm from the fixed end
Free end

-0.4

-0.6
0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

Time (s)

Fig. 4. Computational results of the vibration at various locations of the

substrate.
Fig. 5. (a) Laser forming system (b) Illustrations of the bending mechanism, where MA and MR are the bending moments in the heating and
cooling periods, respectively.

amplitude increases due to the release of strain energy

in the so-called elastic spring-back stage. The vibration
persists at the natural frequency of the specimen. To
verify this mechanism, the fast Fourier transformation
method (FFT) was applied to analyze the frequency of the
dynamic response in the cooling stage [17]. As shown in
Fig. 6, the sampled frequency is 23:077 Hz, which is equivalent to the basic mode of the natural frequency of the
specimen [18].

6. Pulse superposition
The technique of pulse superposition was proposed to
modify the vibration mode in laser forming. With this
technique, the second pulse was imposed to the existing waveform caused by the 4rst pulse after a 4xed time
interval. As shown in Fig. 7, where the time interval

H. Hsieh, J. Lin / Optics & Laser Technology 36 (2004) 431 439

A part of the numerical result

435

0.4

0.5

0.4

0.3

Displacement (mm)

Displacement (mm)

0
0.2

0.1

-0.4
-0.1

Heating Time = 0.05 s

Power = 300W
Thickness = 0.5 mm
Spot size = 4 mm
Time interval = 3.5T

-0.2
0

0.02

0.04

0.06

(a)

0.08

0.1

0.12

0.14

Time (s)
-5

-0.8

FFT of numerical result

x 10
5

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

Time (s)

Fig. 7. Displacement at the free end of substrate with two laser pulses at
a time interval of 3:5 T and T = 1=23:077 s.

Magnitude

3
0.8

0.4

0
0

20

(b)

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

180

Frequency (Hz)

Fig. 6. Results of the spectrum analysis by FFT at a sampling time of

2:5 ms, (a) vibration signal in the time domain (b) vibration signal in
the frequency domain.

is 3:5 T (T = 1=23:077 s), under a 300 W laser energy radiation at a pulse-duration time of 0:1 s, the amplitude of the
vibration decreases due to the destructive interference by
the second pulse. By reducing the time interval to 2:75 T as
shown in Fig. 8, a constructive interference mode is generated. These examples show that the vibration system of
the study is not the case of the linear superposition system,
in which the amplitude of the vibration should be in the
destructive mode in the above testing conditions.
7. Experiments
7.1. Experimental arrangement
The experimental arrangement for the pulsed laser forming of the stainless-steel sheets is shown in Fig. 9. A CO2
laser beam was directed into a focusing lens with a focal

Displacement (mm)

-0.4
Heating Time = 0.05 s
Power = 300 W
Thickness = 0.5 mm
Spot size = 4 mm
Time interval = 2.75T
-0.8
0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

Time (s)

Fig. 8. Displacement at the free end of substrate with two laser pulses at
a time interval of 2:75 T and T = 1=23:077 s.

length of 125 mm, which collimated a circular beam with

a raw beam diameter of 16 mm into a spot size in a range
of 2.0 3:0 mm. The pulse duration time of the laser was
adjusted by a CNC with a mechanical chopper in the laser
system. The specimen was clamped at one end and irradiated by the laser beam at the specimen center. A laser
displacement sensor (Wenglor) with an accuracy of 10 m
was used to measure the displacement of the specimen. The
voltage signal of the displacement sensor was sampled by a

436

H. Hsieh, J. Lin / Optics & Laser Technology 36 (2004) 431 439

Laser
Laser displacement
beam
sensor

Table 1
Uncertainty analysis of the natural frequency due to variations of the
specimen properties

A/D card

Uncertainty of
specimen properties

Lens

+10%
10%
+10%
10%

Specimen

Clamp

Natural
frequency in the
simulation (Hz)

density oAset
20.050
density oAset
22.250
Youngs modulus oAset 25.800
Youngs modulus oAset 20.050

Natural
frequency in the
experiment (Hz)
19.195
19.195
19.195
19.195

Fig. 9. Experimental arrangement.

of the numerical simulation. The basic natural frequencies

are 19.195 and 23:077 Hz in the experiment and simulation,
respectively. The discrepancy is about 20% on average. This
may be due to the uncertainties of the material properties
and the neglect of any damping eAects in the computation
[18]. The natural frequency due to the uncertainties of the
specimen properties such as Youngs modulus and density
has been analyzed. With 10% oAsets of the Youngs modulus and density of the specimen as shown in Fig 14, the
corresponding natural frequencies of the specimen are listed
in Table 1. It can be seen that the density and Youngs modulus are important variables of the natural frequency in the
simulation.

0.4

Displacement (mm)

-0.4

7.3. Multiple-pulse test

Power = 200 W
Heating Time = 0.1 s
Thickness = 0.5 mm
Spot size = 3 mm
Experiment
Numerical method
-0.8
0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

Time (s)

Fig. 10. Experimental and numerical results of the vibration at a distance

of 5 mm from the free end of the substrate.

computer with an I/O card (PICO, ADC-100). To free any

residual stress, the 304 stainless-steel specimens were 4rst
annealed above 500 C and coated with graphite to enhance
the absorption of the CO2 laser beam.
7.2. Single-pulse test
A single pulse was used in the experiments. The dimension of the specimen was 140 10 0:5 mm3 and the laser
power was 200 W with a pulse width of 0:1 s and a beam
spot of 3:0 mm. Fig. 10 shows the experimental and numerical results of the displacement response at a distance of
5 mm from the free end of the specimen. It is apparent that
there is a similar trend. Large bending displacement occurs
at the beginning of the heating with a strong spring-back effect. Due to the loading eAects, such as recoil pressure in the
laser-material interaction [19], and the over-simpli4ed assumption of the temporal mode of the laser input, the vibration response of the measurement is much stronger than that

Using the same experimental setup shown in Fig. 9 but

with an additional photo detector having wavelengths between 400 and 1200 nm and a response time of 8 ns, a
multiple-pulse experiment was performed. The laser power
was 200 W and had a beam spot of 2:0 mm operating at
a pulse duration of 0:1 s. The time interval of two pulses
was measured by the photo detector, which was pointed
at the laser heat-aAected zone. Fig. 11 shows the signal
of the detector at two time intervals, 0.44 and 0:55 s. The
corresponding waveforms of the two pulses are shown in
Figs. 12 and 13, respectively. Due to the non-linearity of
the bending system as discussed in the previous section, it
is observed that a constructive interference mode is generated when the time interval is 0:44 s while the destructive
mode occurs for the case of 0:55 s. Since an intense permanent deformation is obtained in the case of destructive
mode as shown in Fig. 13, the peak amplitude of vibration
is approximately three times that after the 4rst pulse. This
discrepancy is mainly caused by an eLcient storage of the
strain energy of the laser deformation with the vibration in
the destructive mode.
8. Conclusions
Owing to the non-linear coupling eAects amongst the
stress, strain and temperature of the material properties of
the stainless-steel specimens in pulsed laser forming, this

H. Hsieh, J. Lin / Optics & Laser Technology 36 (2004) 431 439

2

16

Displacement (mm)

12

Volt (V)

437

-1

Power =200 w
Heating time = 0.1s
Spot size= 2 mm
Time interval = 0.44sec

-2

0
0

0.2

(a)

0.4

0.6

0.8

1
0

Time (s)

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

Time (s)

Fig. 12. Experimental results of the vibration at a distance of 5 mm from

the free end of the substrate at a time interval of 0:44 s between two
pulses.

12

Volt (V)

Displacement (mm)

0
0

(b)

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

Time (s)

Power = 200 w
Heating time = 0.1s
Spot size= 2 mm
Time interval = 0.55 sec

-1

Fig. 11. Signal response of the photo diode at various time intervals
between two pulses; time interval of (a) 0:44 s, (b) 0:55 s.
0

study has successfully investigated numerically, using a

three-dimensional meshed domain, and experimentally the
vibration phenomenon induced by thermal deformation of
thin stainless-steel sheets under laser forming.
The fundamental mechanism of the vibration in laser
forming has been found to be caused by the bending moment
from uneven distributions of temperature and stress during
laser heating. In the rapidly cooling stage, an unbending
moment was produced.
According to the results from the simulation and the experiments, vibration was excited at the natural frequency
of the specimen. Using the superposition technique with

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

Time (s)

Fig. 13. Experimental results of the vibration at a distance of 5 mm from

the free end of the substrate at a time interval of 0:55 s between two
pulses.

multiple pulses, the interference of the waveform was obtained. The results con4rm the non-linearity of the laser
bending system. Intense plastic deformation has also been
obtained in the case of destructive mode with an eLcient
storage of the strain energy by the superposition technique
in the laser deformation.

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H. Hsieh, J. Lin / Optics & Laser Technology 36 (2004) 431 439

30

700

24

Thermal expansion coefficient (10-6/C)

28

thermal conductivity (W/mC)

specific heat (J/kgC)

650

600

550

26
24
22
20
18

500

22

20

18

16
14

450
0

400

800

1200

16
0

1600

400

Temperature (C)

800

1200

1600

300

Temperature (C)

0.33

600

900

1200

Temperature (C)

8000

200

0.32
160
Young's modulus (GPa)

7800
Density (kg/m3)

Poisson's ratio

0.31

0.3

7600

0.29

120

80

7400
40

0.28

0.27

7200
0

300

600

900

1200

0
0

400

Temperature (C)

800

1200

1600

300

Temperature (C)

600

900

1200

1500

Temperature (C)

250

Yielding stress (MPa)

200

150

100

50

0
0

400

800

1200

1600

Temperature (C)

Fig. 14. Thermal and mechanical properties of annealed 304 stainless steel [13,14].

Appendix.
The relationships of the temperature-dependent properties
used in the simulation are shown in Fig. 14.

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