Effect of Operating Parameters On Plate Bending by Laser Line Heating
Effect of Operating Parameters On Plate Bending by Laser Line Heating
Abstract
Laser line heating is a plate bending technique. It is produced due to the heating effect of a laser beam when irradiated
over a suitable heating path. In this work, the effect on angular deformation under different operating parameters, such
as energy (in terms of laser power), scanning speed and number of passes along with the thickness of the substrate
material, was studied under straight line scanning schemes. In this experiment, CO2 laser has been used and the sub-
strate material used is the mild steel sheet. The effect of each operating parameter was taken into account to find the
optimum process parameter. The design of experiment has been applied with the help of Taguchi method, and the
results were obtained and analysed with the help of analysis of variance and Taguchi analysis (signal-to-noise ratio), for
the determination of the optimized values of the operating parameters with their effect towards angular deformation in
the process. A regression analysis also has also been performed to obtain a suitable co-relationship between bending
angle and other operating parameters.
Keywords
Multi-pass, angular deformation, Taguchi design of experiment analysis, regression analysis, line heating
Therefore, the width of the zone (w) can be expressed Table 1. Operating parameters and their selected levels (under
as Taguchi DOE L-16 array).
rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi! rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi!
c3d c3d Experiment Traverse Power Number of Sheet
w=d+2 2 =d+4 ð3Þ No. speed (W) passes thickness
v v (mm/min) (mm)
Taguchi method of design of experiment uniform for all, then the mixed level design is to be
taken into consideration. By considering both the val-
The design of experiment (DOE) is a method where the
ues (number of parameters and levels), the suitable OA
experiments were performed according to a fixed sys-
has to be chosen from the manuals or handbook. The
tem or plan. This is necessary for solving any problem
design should be extracted from the listed designs and
related to engineering in principles, techniques and data
it is to be used.
collection stage, ensuring in getting some logical and
Here, the experimental design for multi-pass line
justifiable conclusions. It also enables the designs for
heating was taken into consideration by selecting four
the determination of individual and interactive effects
laser operating parameters; they are as follows: traverse
of many factors, which could affect the output results
speed, laser power, plate thickness and number of
in any design. Here in this case, Taguchi method of
scans. All the parameters were varied in four levels
DOE is taken into consideration before performing the
except the plate thickness which is varied in two levels.
experiments and analysis.
L-16 OA was incorporated for the DOE as shown in
Taguchi method15 has been designed for obtaining
Table 1, and with the help of parameter and output
improved quality processes and outputs where the per-
signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio and S/N analysis were per-
formance of the output depends on several factors. It
formed. As in this case the main aim is obtaining large
can be thought that for carrying out any test and devel-
bending with the change in operating parameters,
opment, simple logic is sufficient for establishment of
higher values of S/N ratio give better result correspond-
possible combination of several factors along with the
ing to optimal process parameters.
ranges to be taken into consideration. Taguchi has
developed a set of designs for applications. The special
features of this type of designs are the usage of ortho- Results and discussion
gonal arrays (OAs). These arrays help in performing
minimum number of experiments required for a given
Single-pass line heating
set of parameters. Here, we have used Taguchi DOE A series of experiments on single pass (run) were per-
for optimizing the operating parameters. The experi- formed for obtaining the angular deformation of mild
ment design must satisfy the following two conditions: steel plates of dimension 200 mm 3 200 mm 3 3 mm.
The experiments were carried out by altering the laser
1. The number of trial runs must be determined. power and traverse speed, keeping the laser diameter
2. Trial conditions are to be specified. constant, that is, 3 mm. The peak temperatures
obtained from the experimental study at different loca-
tions (i.e. as shown in Figure 2) are shown in Table 2
Selection of the level of parameters which shows the effect of operating parameters on peak
For the selection of the level of parameters, the initial temperatures at different locations for single-pass line
selection of the number of operating parameters heating process. The results are shown in Table 3 which
involves in the process and then the level is to be shows the effect of angular deformation for single-pass
defined. If it happens that the number of levels is not line heating process.
Das and Biswas 1815
can be concluded that the line heating should be carried input in the irradiated area from the first pass could
out near the line heat input value of 150 J/mm. So in serve for the additional forming by reducing the
this way for different thicknesses of plates, the opti- temperature-dependent flow stress of the material, in
mum line heat input can be calculated. that a hot plate is easier to form than a cold one.
Figure 5 shows the results obtained under multiple
scanning schemes under different heat inputs per unit
Multi-pass line heating length for samples of 3- and 4-mm-thick mild steel
We have developed the design of experiment on the plates.
Taguchi DOE, L-16 array, on the basis of that experi-
mentation has been done and the corresponding results
of bending angle are tabulated in Table 4. Figure 5 rep- Analysis of DOE results
resents the heat input per unit length versus bend angle The obtained experimental results were investigated
under different scanning schemes for mild steel plate of under Taguchi method of analysis. Taguchi analysis
3 and 4 mm thicknesses. incorporates the basic three objectives, which are as fol-
With the increase in material thickness and strength, lows: (1) for the determination of the optimum condi-
more amount of energy is required for obtaining the tion, (2) factors contributing to the results and
same angular deformation. Here in this technique as determination of percentage contribution of the operat-
multiple passes are involved, it has been observed that ing parameters to the output results and (3) the
with the increase in the number of passes, the angular expected results at the optimum condition.
deformation increases. This is because the retained heat Identification of the optimum condition can be
obtained by simple arithmetic calculations.15 On deter-
mination of optimum condition, trial run must be
accompanied so as to know the difference in the output
in the experiment conducted in optimum and non-
optimum condition. Optimum may not be the set of
experiment that has been obtained under OA.
Figure 5. Heat input per unit length versus bend angle under and 86.85%, respectively, which indicate the wellness
different scanning schemes for 3 and 4 mm thicknesses of plates. of data to fit into a statistical model.
From Figure 7, it can be observed that the bending
angle has a significant influence on sheet thickness and
number of passes (scans) than the other parameters. It
is also observed from the values of percentage contribu-
tion that both scanning speed and the number of passes
are dominant with respect to all other parameters.
From Figure 6, it has been observed that the usage where ˘ is the bend angle (°), v is the traverse speed
of the values of the parameter having negative mean S/ (mm/min), P is the laser power (W), N is the number of
N ratio value will lead in obtaining poor quality of passes and t is the sheet thickness (mm).
output (bend angle). For obtaining the optimum bend Here, R2 acts as a measure of accuracy of the result
angle, the parameters should be selected in the positive to be obtained as output in relation to that of the input
region of vertical axis for all parameters. It is observed parameters with the experimental results. Higher value
from Figure 5 that optimum bend angle can be of R2 indicates that the empirical relation obtained, that
obtained using laser power = 600 W, traverse speed = is, equation (4), above has a better predicting capability
200 mm/min, number of passes = 4 and sheet of the output (bend angle), and there will be less mis-
thickness = 3 mm. match between the experimental output and the output
obtained from equation (4). As per Table 6, which is
the regression table for equation (4), the value of R2 is
ANOVA. It is a technique which has been used for pro- found to be 92.1%, which shows that the model can be
viding measure of confidence. This technique has been used with sufficient accuracy.
applied to the experimental results for the determina- A test run has been performed based on the para-
tion of the effectiveness of the parameters that are meter tabulated in Table 7 and it was observed that the
responsible for the required output. This technique experimental output obtained validates well with that
helps in providing confidence on the basis of variance of the output obtained from the regression equation
of the data.16 (i.e. equation (4)). The results are also plotted in
From the above analysis as shown in Table 5, the R2 Figure 8. The results obtained are of great accuracy
and the adjustable R2 are found to be about 95.62% with minimal amount of percentage of error. Thus, this
1818 Proc IMechE Part B: J Engineering Manufacture 231(10)
DF: degree of freedom; Seq. SS: sequential sum of square; Adj. SS: adjusted sum of square; Adj. MS: adjusted mean of square.
Table 7. Values of the bend angle obtained from the regression equation.
Experiment Traverse Laser power No. of pass Plate thickness Bend angle from Bend angle from Percentage
No. speed (W) (mm) experiment regression of error
(mm/min) analysis equation
Conclusion
In this article, bending of mild steel sheet is carried out
with the process of laser line heating with the input
process parameters considered as traverse speed, laser
power, number of passes and sheet thickness, and the
response obtained is bend angle as the output.
for sheet thickness of 3 mm are the optimal combi- 5. Shen H, Shi Y, Yao Z, et al. An analytical formula for
nations of laser line heating process parameters that estimating the bending angle by laser forming. Proc
produce an output of 5.1° as an angle of bend. IMechE, Part C: J Mechanical Engineering Science 2007;
ANOVA statistics revealed that the number of 220(9): 993–997.
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ing good results followed by sheet thickness, laser Laser Eng 1994; 2: 261–276.
7. Yau CL, Chan KC and Lee WB. A new analytical model
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for laser tube bending. In: Geiger M and Vollertsen F
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Thus, it is concluded that the procedure proposed neering 2, 1997; 2: 383–392.
in this article for optimization of laser line heating 9. Kyrsanidi AK, Kermanidis TB and Pantelakis SG. An
process parameters will significantly improve the analytical model for the prediction of distortions caused
angle of bend for mild steel sheets and plates. by the laser forming process. J Mater Process Tech 2000;
104(1–2): 94–102.
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Declaration of conflicting interests estimating the bending angle by laser forming. Proc
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest IMechE, Part C: J Mechanical Engineering Science 2006;
with respect to the research, authorship and/or publica- 220(2): 243–247.
tion of this article. 11. Mucha Z. Deformations and stresses induced in materials
by moving beam of CO2 laser. Proc SPIE 2007; 6598:
65980M-1–65980M-9.
Funding 12. Shi Y, Shen H, Yao Z, et al. Temperature gradient
The author(s) received no financial support for the mechanism in laser forming of thin plates. Opt Laser
Technol 2007; 39(4): 858–863.
research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
13. Shen H, Shi YJ and Yao ZQ. Numerical simulation of
the laser forming of plates using two simultaneous scans.
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