Thermo-mechanical Simulation of the Laser Forming of AISI 304 Stainless Steel Square Plate with a Central Cut Out
K. Paramasivan, S. Das, M. Sundar and D. Misra
The aim of this investigation is to establish the effect of process parameters on the temperature distribution and the final bending angle of a 50.0 × 50.0 × 1.5 mm3 AISI 304 stainless steel plate with a central cut out. Different shapes and sizes of the cut out are considered: square; circular and elliptic. A thermo-mechanical finite element (FE) analysis was carried out with the help of COMSOL MULTIPHYSICS for simulation of laser forming process. Keeping the laser beam spot diameter, scanning speed and sheet thickness as constants, the effects of the cut out shape, size and laser power on transient temperature fields and deformation fields are studied. From the results of numerical simulation, it can be seen that laser power, and shape and size of the cut out portion play important roles in the laser forming process. The present study reveals that bending angle is mostly affected by varying the shapes and increasing the cut out size in laser scanning path with the same process parameters.
Keywords: Laser forming, AISI 304 stainless steel, square plate, cut out, thermomechanical, finite element (FE) model, temperature distribution, bending angle