Laser forming of open-cell aluminium foams

Open-cell aluminium foams cannot be formed by conventional mechanical processes because of the occurrence of failure during deformation. In this study, open cell-aluminium foams with different densities were laser bent by means of a diode laser. Laser bending tests were performed with different values of laser power and scan velocity, and were compared with mechanical bending tests. High bending angles were reached for proper combinations of process parameters: 90 degrees bending was obtained by sharing out the total angle among many parallel bending lines. The process efficiency was measured in terms of bending increase per single laser pass: similar efficiencies were observed for the foams with different density at low number of scans, but higher efficiencies were measured for the low density foam at high number of scans because of the lower pre-heating during the process. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.