Abstract:
The present study is concerned with the experimental investigation of sheet metal deforming by line
heating method that incorporates the combined effect of traverse speed of the torch, thickness of the
sheet metal, and the number of passes of the torch. For the numerical analysis of metal bending by line
heating, the finite element method is employed and the design of an experiment with an orthogonal array
L9 is used for the experimental investigation and parameter optimization. Mild steel of 300 200 mm is
used for both numerical and experimental investigation. The results from the two approaches show that
the thermal deformation of the sheet metal mainly depends on geometrical parameters like the thickness
of the metal. From the result, a 2 mm thickness metal with a 5 mm/s travel speed and single-pass line
heating are the best optimum combinations for the maximum temperatures and deformations. The
deformations generated from this case are 0.25 mm from the reference plane with a peak temperature
gradient of 667.5 C. And also, for the required amount of deformation, the thickness has a significant
effect than travel speed and number of passes with a percentage contribution of 93.48%, 5.69%, and
0.41% respectively. And also, for the two approaches, numerical modeling is well agreed with the exper iments. Finally, it has been shown that the numerical modeling of the moving heat source developed for
this purpose accurately predicts the real process in a mechanical workbench with a user interface.
