Journal of Materials Processing Technology 103 (2000) 102±108

Development of irradiation strategies for 3D-laser forming

Thomas Hennige*,1
University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Egerlandstr 11, D-91058 Erlangen, Germany

Abstract

A new ®eld of application for the process of laser forming is the controlled generation of complex curved sheet metal parts for rapid-
prototyping and small series productions. This paper presents basic investigations on the differences in the forming behaviour of sheet-
metal parts using linear and curved irradiations, indicating a strong in¯uence of the material adjacent to the irradiated zone on the forming
result in the case of curved irradiation paths. The reasons for this behaviour are analysed and discussed. Several irradiation strategies that
could be derived from basic experiments were investigated for the case of mild steel spherical dome samples. In addition, ®rst results of
®nite element calculations on laser forming along curved irradiation paths are presented. # 2000 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Laser forming; Bending; Finite element method

1. Introduction Most of the applications mentioned above are up to now

The process of laser forming has intensively been inves-
tigated in the last years. Especially the underlying forming
mechanisms and the variety of possible applications were
analysed and discussed in detail [1,2]. One of the main
advantages of the process is that it allows toolless and
therefore contactless forming procedures. As a consequence
of the thermal induced forming process no springback
occurs in the cooling phase after the laser is switched off.
This effect is mainly responsible for the high achievable
working accuracies, especially in the case of controlled laser
bending [3]. Regarding these advantages, the high potential
of laser forming for rapid prototyping demands and small
series production was realised soon [4,5]. In addition, laser
forming was successfully used for complex alignment tasks
of extrusions and sheet metal parts [6]. Due to the ¯exibility
of the process even an alignment of smallest parts, with sizes
in the range of a few millimeters, can be realised with an
accuracy in the submicron range [7,8]. Regarding the actual
development trends it can be predicted that the number of
applications in the ®eld of micro-component adjustment will
further increase in the next years, as the components dimen-
sions will be reduced to values that permit mechanical
handling operations.
*
Tel.: ‡49-9131-858-326; fax: ‡49-9131-364-03.
E-mail address: t.hennige@lft.uni-erlangen.de (T. Hennige)
1
Chair of Manufacturing Technology.
using linear irradiation lines to achieve the desired forming
result. They can therefore be described as typical laser
bending applications. For the production of complex shaped
or spatially curved parts (e.g., a spherical dome) different
irradiation strategies which are partly based on curved
irradiation lines have to de developed. If such curved
irradiation lines are applied instead of linear lines, the
general case of 3D-laser forming sets in. Hereby a signi®-
cant change of the process mechanisms and its dependencies
on the parts geometry can be ascertained. This paper pre-
sents basic considerations on the different irradiation stra-
tegies that can be applied for the generation of complex
shaped parts. Additionally, the results of forming experi-
ments for the generation of a spherical dome and the results
of some basic ®nite element simulations are presented.
2. Laser forming of transition geometries
2.1. Set-up of the experiments
As mentioned above, the process of 3D-laser forming is in
fact very different from conventional laser bending, which
implies bending along straight irradiation lines. Fig. 1 shows
the variety of parameters, namely of the material properties,
the laser system and the parts geometry, which gain impor-
tant in¯uence on the forming process. During the transition
from linear to curved irradiation conditions, the process

0924-0136/00/$ ± see front matter # 2000 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 9 2 4 - 0 1 3 6 ( 0 0 ) 0 0 3 9 2 - 7
 T. Hennige / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 103 (2000) 102±108
Fig. 1. Relevant parameters in laser forming.
behaviour changes signi®cantly due to the large in¯uence of
the geometries parameters. The reason for this behaviour can
be explained by the strong in¯uence of the surrounding
material on the forming result. If the sheet metal part in Fig.
1 starts to bend towards the laser, the material in the inner
region (1) has to be strained, while the material in the outer
region (2) has to be compressed during forming. It is obvious
that this behaviour will strongly affect the forming ef®ciency
in 3D-laser forming. In order to establish a direct compar-
ison between linear and curved irradiations some basic
experimental investigations were done. Hereby two basic
part geometries, which will be named ring segments and
circle segments in the following, were selected to describe
the transition from linear to curved irradiation laser bending.
For the experiments sheet metal parts from SAE 1008 with a
thickness of 2 mm were used. The specimens were coated
with graphite in order to increase the incoupling of the laser
energy, and afterwards irradiated with parameters of the
temperature-gradient-mechanism [9] using a CO2-laser with
a maximum cw-output power of 820 W. The laser forming
experiments based on ring segments were carried out with a
Fig. 2. De®nition of transition and reference geometries for laser forming.
103
de®nite position of the curved irradiation line (rlˆ55 mm),
while the segment angle b was varied between 58 and 908 in
order to quantify its in¯uence on the forming result (Fig. 2).
For the comparison of linear and curved laser bending a
rectangular reference geometry was de®ned for each seg-
ment angle. As criterion for the reference state the length of
the curved irradiation line was chosen. So the length of the
irradiated line on a given reference geometry was equal to
the curved irradiation line on the corresponding ring seg-
ment. The relevant forming result, namely the bend angle aB,
was measured at three positions on the bent specimens,
using a laser-optical surface measurement system (Roden-
stock RM 600). In addition to these experiments, a second
series of investigations with a constant segment angle bˆ908
and a variable radius of the irradiation line (rlˆ55, 70 and
85 mm, respectively) was carried out (Fig. 3).
Through the variable radii different degrees of strain
hindrance were applied in the specimens. In addition, circle
segments with dimensions corresponding to the ring seg-
ments were used to introduce a further increased strain
hindrance. This effect is a consequence of the additional
material in the inner region of the circle segments.
2.2. Development of the bend angle as a function of the
number of irradiations
The results of the experiments described above are pre-
sented in the following ®gures. All symbols represent the
arithmetic average of ®ve individual specimens, with a
standard deviation smaller than the symbol size. From laser
bending along linear lines it is known that the increase of the
sheet thickness, the work hardening of the lower side of the
sheet and changes in the absorption conditions lead to a
degressive form of the bend angle versus the number of
irradiations [10]. This can as well be seen in the aB(n)-curve
for the 908-reference geometry, plotted in Fig. 4. The direct
comparison with the measured bend angles for a 908-ring
segment shows that the degree of degressiveness of the bend
angle curve is higher in the case of curved laser irradiation,
consequently resulting in a higher number of necessary
irradiations for a given ®nal bend angle. It is remarkable
104 T. Hennige / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 103 (2000) 102±108
Fig. 3. Geometries of samples with variable degrees of strain hindrance.
that the differences in the achieved bend angles already
appear after a few irradiations, which is a ®rst hint on the
strong in¯uence of the geometrical induced strain hindrance
on the forming result in laser forming.
2.3. In¯uence of the segment angle
Fig. 5 shows the resulting bend angles for the experiments
with variable segment angles. The reference geometries
show a degressive bend angle curve with increasing b (which
in Fig. 5 represents the corresponding reference length B) to
a saturation value. This can be explained by the counter
bending, which results from the thermal expansion of the
irradiated side of the sheet. If this thermal expansion is not
restricted, as in the case of small widths of the specimen, the
counter bending has a maximum amount, leading to a
reduction of the achievable bend angle at the end of the
process. For increasing widths of the sheet the restriction of
counter bending due to the cold material in the unirradiated
area of the specimen increases as well. As a consequence the
bend angle increases up to the measured saturation value.
Fig. 4. Development of the bend angle for multiple irradiations along
linear and curved lines.
The ring segments with 58<b<458 principally show the same
degressive increase, but the degree of degressiveness is
slightly stronger than for the reference sheets. This beha-
viour can even be found for the smallest segment angle bˆ58
which nearly represents the case of linear laser bending.
These results indicate that the geometrically induced strain
hindrance very early shows a negative effect on the process
ef®ciency in the case of laser forming along curved irradia-
tion lines. For ring segments with b>458 the bend angle
decreases again, accompanied by an increase of the long-
itudinal distortion. From these results it can be concluded
that the amount of geometrically induced strain hindrance
increases for segment angles above 458, maybe as a cause of
changes in the forming mechanism itself or increasing
in¯uences of residual stresses.
2.4. In¯uence of the irradiation geometry
Fig. 6 shows the in¯uence of different irradiation geo-
metries on the achievable bend angle for the case of multiple
irradiations of the ring segments. In comparison to the
Fig. 5. Development of the bend angle as function of the segment angle.
 T. Hennige / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 103 (2000) 102±108
Fig. 6. Development of the bend angle as a function of the irradiation
geometry.
geometry with an irradiation line radius of rlˆ55 mm, the
geometries with 70 and 85 mm radii achieve higher bend
angles (maximum bend angle for rlˆ70 mm). The reason for
this behaviour is the higher degree of strain hindrance for
positions of the irradiation line close to the inner
(rlˆ55 mm) or outer (rlˆ85 mm) region of the specimen.
If the strain hindrance is further increased by using circle
segments instead of ring segments, the achievable bend
angle decreases in comparison to the corresponding
ring segments. For the geometry with rlˆ85 mm the differ-
ence in the bend angles of ring and circle segments amounts
only to DaBˆ0.138, which is comparatively small. The
explanation for this effect obviously is the longer distance
between the irradiation line and the inner edge of the
geometry that suppresses the negative in¯uence of the
additional material on the bend angle development. If this
assumption is correct, the measured bend angle difference
of DaBˆ0.538 for the geometry with rlˆ55 mm should be
the largest, as the irradiation line is the nearest to the
additional material at the inner edge of the specimen. But
it can be seen from Fig. 6 that the bend angle difference for
the geometry with rlˆ70 mm is much larger (DaBˆ2.028).
The results clearly indicate that an enhanced understanding
of the forming process can only be achieved if the under-
lying mechanisms of these effects are identi®ed and ana-
lysed.
Fig. 7. Basic irradiation strategies for 3D-laser forming.
105
3. Irradiation strategies for 3D-laser forming
3.1. Basic irradiation patterns for spatially curved
parts
If we try to produce a spatially curved part by laser
forming, e.g., one of the ring segments mentioned above
or a spherical dome, there are generally two different types
of irradiation strategies that we can make use of. The ®rst
one was used for the experiments described above and
consists of curved irradiation lines that are irradiated
with laser parameters for the temperature-gradient-mechan-
ism (TGM). The second strategy consists of radial
irradiation lines that are irradiated with laser parameters
for the upsetting mechanism. The forming is the result of the
localised upsetting of the material, which leads to a bending
of the sheet out of its original plane. The two strategies
have their speci®c advantages and disadvantages, depending
on the initial geometry of the part. In the following the
geometry of a symmetric part, namely a spherical dome, will
be the basis of all considerations. Adapting the ®rst strategy
on this initial geometry, concentric lines have to be irra-
diated in order to achieve the desired forming result (see
Fig. 7). From the investigations presented in Chapter 2 it is
ascertainable that bending along a concentric line will
automatically lead to a wrinkling of the part after some
irradiations, as the ability of the material in the inner and
outer regions to be deformed elastically during the irradia-
tions is limited.
If only radial lines are used, the positioning of successive
irradiations becomes more and more important for the
forming process. As only one line can be irradiated per
time step, an asymmetric forming result and distribution of
residual stresses occurs. The following irradiations therefore
have to create symmetric conditions again. If the second line
is directly opposite to the ®rst one, the development of a
bend edge through these lines cannot be avoided in most
cases. So there have to be at least three irradiation lines,
angled 1208 from each other, that create symmetrical con-
ditions in the workpiece every 3n irradiations. Such an
irradiation pattern can then easily be rotated by a few
degrees, in order to process the whole plate. Another pos-
sible strategy for laser forming of a spherical dome that uses
elements of both strategies is described in the following
paragraph.
106 T. Hennige / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 103 (2000) 102±108
Fig. 8. Individual components of the irradiation pattern for laser forming of a spherical dome.
3.2. Irradiation pattern for laser forming of a spherical
dome
As mentioned before the speci®c disadvantages of the
basic strategies for 3D-laser forming can be avoided by
de®ning a combined pattern of both strategies, consisting of
radial and concentric sets of irradiation lines. The concentric
lines are hereby meant to stabilise the plate against the
development of a bend edge during the irradiation of the
radial lines. In the experiments, three different sets of radial
laser-lines were used. The ®rst set consisted of 48 short lines
with a length of 20 mm and an angle of 7.58 between two
adjacent lines. The second and the third set each consisted of
24 lines with a length of 40 and 60 mm, respectively, having
an angle of 158 between lines of the same set. All lines were
irradiated beginning at the outer edge of the plate. For the
experiments plates of SAE 1008 with a diameter of 200 mm
and a sheet thickness of 2 mm were processed, using the
same CO2-laser system as above. The described strategy was
used in a series of forming experiments. Hereby the geo-
metries of the individual irradiation sets were adapted
stepwise to improve the forming result. Finally, an optimised
sequence of irradiation sets could be determined: starting
with the short radial lines in the outer region, compressive
stresses develop, that enhance the forming ef®ciency of the
following concentric line that is the nearest to that region
(Set 1 and Line 1 in Fig. 8). This procedure was completed
with the radial lines of set 2 and 3 and the corresponding
concentric TGM-lines 2 and 3. The resulting forming result,
especially the achieved depth of the dome, was the highest
for this strategy.
4. Finite element simulation of 3D-laser forming
The ®nite element method is a powerful tool for studies of
the forming behaviour for nearly every sheet metal forming
task. Concerning the process of laser forming, much simula-
tion work was done in the ®eld of laser bending [11], leading
to an increased knowledge of the underlying forming
mechanisms. Especially the different stages of the process,
like the developing counter bending, the beginning plastic
compression of the irradiated area and the contraction during
cooling, could be identi®ed with the use of FEM-simula-
tions. As the process of 3D-laser forming was found to be
very sensitive to variations in the parts geometry, the aim of
this study was to develop a suitable FE-model that accounts
for the temperature dependent behaviour of the material
(heating and cooling cycle) and the special geometrical
conditions in 3D-laser forming. The used software (SYS-
WELD; Framasoft & CSI) ®rst calculates the laser induced
temperature ®eld as a function of time. This temperature
®eld is the basis for the mechanical calculation, namely the
thermal induced elastic±plastic behaviour of the investigated
material with regard to the speci®c geometrical conditions.
4.1. Set-up for the simulation of transition geometries
In order to get a ®rst impression of the speci®c problems
in simulating 3D-laser forming tasks, one of the above
mentioned transition geometries (208-ring segment) was
chosen for the development of a ®rst FE-model. The FE-
mesh generated for this ring segment consisted of 4800
elements in a radial-concentric arrangement, sub-divided
into four layers in the direction of the sheet thickness. Each
layer consisted of 80 elements in radial and 15 elements in
circumferential direction (see Fig. 9). This subdivision
guaranteed that for every point on the curved irradiation
Fig. 9. 3D-laser formed spherical dame.
 T. Hennige / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 103 (2000) 102±108
Fig. 10. First results of ®nite element simulations for laser forming of ring segments.
line at least four elements were irradiated simultaneously by
the laser.
The parameters for the FE-simulation based on a 208-ring
segment were all identical to the parameters of the corre-
sponding experiments, e.g., the beam diameter, the laser
power and the irradiation geometry. In order to investigate
the effect of multiple irradiations on the same irradiation
line, ®ve successive irradiations of the ring segment were
calculated with the described FE-model.
4.2. First simulation results
The laser induced temperature ®eld in the ring segment
and the resulting stress- and strain-distributions at the end of
the ®fth irradiation (after cooling) can be seen in Fig. 10. The
shown temperature ®eld at the beginning of the ®fth irradia-
tion lies in good agreement with experimental studies and
simulation results of linear laser bending with the tempera-
ture-gradient-mechanism [11], especially with regards to the
temperature gradient between the irradiated side (approxi-
mately 8008C) and the underside (2008C) of the sheet.
Following the temperature-gradient-mechanism, the heating
leads to a local upsetting of the material along the irradiated
line. As an example for the resulting stress-distribution after
®ve successive irradiations and a following cooling period,
the stress syy (stress parallel to the irradiated line) is plotted.
Directly in the middle of the irradiated zone, tensile stresses
remain after cooling. On the left and right side of this area a
zone of compressive stresses can be found. This stress state
parallel to the irradiation line is typical for conventional
welding, laser welding and of course linear laser bending.
The plastic strain distribution perpendicular to the laser line
(Exx,pl) indicates the asymmetric straining of the sheet in the
107
irradiated area. This effect is already known from linear laser
bending. It is a consequence of the different heating con-
ditions at the entry (heat loss) and the exit of the laser beam
(preheating effects).
The presented FEM-investigations can be seen as pre-
liminary results, showing the potentials of a simulation of
the 3D-laser forming process. Future work in this area will
concentrate on larger segment angles and on the simulation
of combined irradiation patterns, in order to investigate the
in¯uence of multiple radial and concentric irradiations on
the forming mechanism. Especially the resulting stress- and
strain-states during the forming process and the residual
stresses after cooling will be a point of interest. In order to
reduce the computation times for such large structures, the
FE-model will have to be improved, for example by using
special types of elements and/or an adaptive meshing algo-
rithm that allows a localised re®nement of the FE-mesh.
5. Conclusions
The experiments on laser forming of ring and circle
segments showed a signi®cant reduction of the achievable
bend angle per irradiation in comparison to linear laser bend-
ing. Even for small segment angles that nearly correspond
to linear laser bending, such a negative effect could be seen.
Introducing different degrees of strain hindrance through
the specimens geometry lead to the same observation.
Additionally, a reduction of the reproducibility of the bend
angle was found for all transition geometries.
Another hint on the strong in¯uence of the geometry on
the process is the reduction of the maximum achievable bend
angle and the corresponding increase of the parts distortion
in the case of segment angles higher than 458.
108 T. Hennige / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 103 (2000) 102±108
With the use of a combined irradiation pattern consisting
of radial and concentric irradiation lines, laser forming of
spherical structures is possible. Concentric lines are hereby
used for stabilising the initially ¯at plate against wrinkling.
These investigations showed as well which problems will be
encountered for advanced forming tasks in 3D-laser form-
ing.
The preliminary results of ®nite element simulations
presented in this paper principally showed the possibility
for a further increased knowledge of the mechanisms in 3D-
laser forming.
Future work will concentrate on the optimisation of the
irradiation patterns for 3D-laser forming tasks, using experi-
mental studies as well as the process simulation based on the
®nite element method.
Acknowledgements
The author gratefully acknowledges the ®nancial support
of the presented work by the German Research Society
(Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG). The author also
wishes to thank the members of the laser forming group at
the LFT, Priv.-Doz. Dr.-Ing. F. Vollertsen, Dr.-Ing. J. Kraus,
Dipl.-Ing. A. Huber and Dipl.-Ing. B. MuÈller, for their kind
support and the valuable suggestions during his research
work and the preparation of this paper.
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