Laser bending of tailor machined blanks: Effect of start point of scan path and irradiation direction relation to step of the blank

Laser bending is a process of gradually adding plastic strain to a metal component to generate desired shape. In this paper, laser bending of tailor machined blanks has been investigated experimentally. For this purpose, effects of start point of scan path and also irradiation direction relation to step (position of variance in sheet thickness) of the tailor machined blank on the obtained bending angles are investigated. The results show that irradiation path from rim of thick section to rim of thin section of the tailor machined blank leads to more bending angles in comparison with irradiation path from thin section to thick section of tailor machined blank. Also, it is concluded from results that when the step of tailor machined blank is positioned in the opposite direction to the laser beam, more bending angles are obtained in the laser formed tailor machined blank in comparison with positioning of step of tailor machined blank toward the laser beam. The results indicate that the bending angle of tailor machined blank is increased with increasing the laser output power and decreasing the laser scanning speed.