Influence of plastic deformation in flexible pad laser shock forming – experimental and numerical analysis

Flexible Pad Laser Shock Forming (FPLSF) is a new microforming process using laser-induced shock pressure and a hyperelastic flexible pad to induce high strain-rate (~10⁵ s⁻¹) plastic deformation on metallic foils to produce 3D microcraters. This paper studies the effect of two significant process parameters of FPLSF, flexible pad material and its thickness, on the deformation characteristics of the metal foils using experiments and finite element analysis. A finite element model is developed to simulate the FPLSF process. The stress-strain distribution across the foil and the flexible pad at different process stages of FPLSF are studied using FE analysis. Flexible pad materials including silicone rubber, polyurethane rubber, and natural rubber with thicknesses ranging between 300 μm and 3000 μm have been investigated in detail. Experimental results highlight that both the hardness and thickness of the flexible pad significantly influence the deformed crater geometry, thickness distribution across the formed crater and surface hardness at the crater surfaces. The experimental results are correlated with the stress-strain distributions from finite element analysis to study the underlying behaviors.