Abstract: Laser forming involves heating sheet metal workpiece along a certain path with a defocused laser beam directed irradiate to the surface. During laser forming, a transient temperature fields is caused by the irradiation and travelling of a laser beam. Consequently, thermal expansion and contraction take place, and allows the thermal- mechanical forming of complex shapes. This is a new manufacturing technique that forming metal sheet only by thermal stress. Therefore, the analysis of temperature fields and stress fields are very useful for studying the forming mechanism and controlling the accuracy of laser forming. The non-liner finite element solver, MARC, is employed to solve the thermal-mechanical analysis. Using this model, the stress and strain distribution of pure aluminum plate with di®erent thickness are analyzed. The influence of scanning speed on temperature fields and plastic strain of metal sheet under the condition of constant line energy are also presented. Numerical results agree well with the experimental results.

Key words: laser forming, FEM simulation, temperature fields,