Influence of beam polarisation in laser bending process

Abstract

In this paper, the influence of beam polarisation in the laser bending process was experimentally studied. Based on the laser beam polarisation, the laser absorption of the metallic specimen could be enhanced by increasing the incident angle. The bending angles are achieved in stainless foil specimens without absorptive coatings, and larger bending angles can be produced by single laser scanning with higher incident angles. Multipass laser bending experiments were also carried out on the same material with graphite coatings. The results show that the bending angle per pass is affected obviously by the beam polarisation at lower laser line energy; and the bending angle per pass increases significantly when the total bending angle is large enough. When using polarised light, the laser beam distortion and laser absorption change induced by the variation of the absorptive coatings and laser incident angle are the two main factors that affect the coupled laser energy. The bending rule is the synthesis effect of the two factors.