Research on Laser Thread Form Bending of Stainless Steel Tube

Compared to traditional bending methods, laser bending can yield products with better shapes and higher quality using the simpler equipment. In this paper, the mechanism of Laser-assisted tube bending is elaborated, and then the influence of processing parameters (including laser power, scanning speed, spot diameter, and scanning times) on the bending angle is studied with both the finite element method and experiments. The bending angle increases with an increase of laser power and spot diameter and with a decrease in the scanning speed. Three-dimensional (3D) thread form bending can be achieved by planning the optimal route, scanning parameters, and the number of laser scans. In contrast to the desired thread diameter of 20mm and thread pitch of 180mm, the resulting thread of the stainless steel tube is close to the target shape with errors of 3% for thread diameter and 2.5% for thread pitch, which are both in an acceptable range and thus verify the validity of the parameters selection and route planning method.