Estimation of temperature-dependent yield strength and modulus of elasticity during laser bending

In this work, an inverse method is developed to estimate the temperature-dependent value of yield strength (Y) and modulus of elasticity (E) of the material during a laser bending process. The method requires measurement of bend angle of the laser scanned workpiece. The inverse model uses the bend angle computed by a direct model. The temperature-dependent Y and E are inversely estimated by minimizing the difference between actual and direct model predicted bend angles. The validation of the proposed method is demonstrated with the help of two examples. For this purpose, inversely estimated values of E and Y are used to predict bend angles for various processing conditions and predicted values are compared with actual values. In examples, actual data has been obtained from a detailed FEM simulation in lieu of shop floor experiments. Later on, the proposed method is also validated by performing shop floor experiments for AH36 steel. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.