Simulation of the forming process of conical cup shaped by laser-induced shock waves

Laser shock forming (LSF) is a sheet plastic forming technology, which employs laser-induced shock waves to make sheet metal duplicate a desired shape of the mold. In this paper, a finite element analysis (FEA) model was developed to simulate dynamic forming process with the commercial finite element code ABAQUS/Explicit, and a series of dynamic deformation behaviors of the metal sheet shaped into conical cup at the end of different periods of time were displayed and discussed in detail. The springback of conical cup and the distribution of residual stress were analyzed with ABAQUS/Standard. All these investigations could provide insight into the physics process of the ultra-fast deformation. The LSF experiment was further conducted to verify the results predicted by FEA. The experiment results are well consistent with the numerical predicted data, which validates the FEA model. It indicates that FEA can be used to simulate the forming process and optimize its parameters.