Improvements to laser forming through process control refinements

Laser forming is a process that uses the energy of relatively high powered lasers to cause permanent deformation to components by inducing localised thermal stresses. It is envisaged that this material processing technique will find a number of commercial applications. This paper briefly discusses laser forming and the development of a basic process monitoring and control system used to overcome variability problems due to the complex nature of the lasers themselves and the manner in which they interact with material. It then goes on to show how the basic control system was modified, using increased feedback data sampling, time delays and a modified control algorithm which takes account of the forming rate in addition to the error. The effect of these developments is then illustrated by a series of tests which show the modifications significantly improve process tolerances.