External force-assisted LaserOrigami (LO) bending: Shaping of 3D cubes and edge design of stainless steel chairs

Shaping of 3D items by external force-assisted LaserOrigami (LO) bending of flat metal sheets is hereby studied. In particular, shaping of 3D stainless steel cubes starting from flat blanks is tested. In addition, edge design of stainless steel chairs by hybrid bending is experimented, too. First, Origami's design of the laser scanning patterns on the starting material was developed. On this basis, the auxiliary device to impress the external force during LO bending was implemented. Then, shaping trials of the blanks were performed by varying the process parameters, that is, laser power, number of passes and external force, in wide operational ranges. Last, the resulting bending angles were collected and analyzed by Analysis of Mean (ANOM), Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Interaction Plots (IP). 3D maps of the bending angles according to the operational parameters were also plotted (Response Surface Methodology, RSM). Bending angles were found to approach the target of 90° by increasing the number of passes and the external force. An increase in laser power caused an additional shift of the RS towards higher bending angles. Indeed, too much high laser power should be carefully avoided to prevent overheating and excessive thermal alteration of the metal, which would compromise the visual appearance of the resulting workpiece. Based on the experimental findings, external force-assisted LaserOrigami (LO) bending of stainless steel cubes and edge design chairs was successfully experimented, with the manufactured items showing good precision, accuracy and valuable appearance. © 2015 The Society of Manufacturing Engineers. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.