Effect of process parameters on laser beam formed titanium alloy sheet

Titanium alloy (Ti6Al4V) is the most widely used alloy grade of titanium in the aerospace industry because of its excellent properties. Laser beam forming is a highly flexible rapid prototyping and low-volume manufacturing process that employs laser-induced thermal distortion to shape sheet metal parts without hard tooling or external forces. The resulting formed shape and the curvature are determined by the beam power and size, scanning velocity, number of scan irradiations and the effect of cooling, all these form part of the process parameters that have to be optimised in order to achieve the desired shape and properties in formed components. Hence, a good control of the process parameters is inevitable to achieve these desired properties. Controlling a single process parameter in a process may be considered easy to manage than a system of multiple parameter process such as a laser beam forming process. This study investigates the effect of the scan velocity, laser power and cooling effect on the developed curvature with the aim of achieving good structural integrity.