Exerimental investigation of laser beam forming of titanium and statistical analysis of the effects of parameters on curvature

Laser beam forming, a non-contact manufacturing process has become a viable manufacturing process for shaping metallic components. The capability of laser beam forming and bending demands more experimental studies to identify an optimized parameter setting and the likely parameters influencing the formed curvature. This paper investigates experimental laser beam forming of Ti6Al4V titanium alloy using a 4.4 kW Nd: YAG laser and studied the effects of the process parameters on the formed curvature. It was established that an increase in both the laser beam power and the number of scan tracks reduces the radius of curvature in the formed sheets having a more dome shape. The scan speed on the other hand, achieved the same good curvature at a slower or reduced scan speed to allow enough laser - material interaction. Furthermore, both the ANOVA and the regression analysis confirmed the repeatability of the experimental data. A simple regression model was developed based on the known active parameters to determine approximate curvatures instead of running a series of experiments.