Laser-assisted metal spinning of advanced materials

At Fraunhofer IPT the hybrid process of laser-assisted metal spinning has been developed. When the metal spinning technique is combined with heat applied by a laser beam, even materials such as titanium and nickel-based alloys as well as strain-hardened stainless steel alloys can be formed without any intermediate annealing steps. Starting with the results of technological investigations on selected high-performance materials, a concept and design of a machine tool prototype are presented. First prototype components for future use in the automotive sector have already been manufactured with laser-assistance.