Metal forming by a moving heat source is both an efficient and economical method for forming flat metal plates into three-dimensional (3D) curved shapes.

The numerical prediction of the shape resulting from this process is greatly compromised due to uncertainties associated with the heat transfer to and heat losses from the affected plate. The dense spatial mesh required to achieve convergent numerical solutions also results in intensive, time-consuming computations. Novel modeling techniques have been developed that significantly reduce computational effort with little or no sacrifice of accuracy. This involves dynamic remeshing of the plate during the heating-forming process to concentrate dense meshing in the immediate vicinity of local heating and sparse meshing elsewhere. Also, to aid in automatic control, researchers have developed a companion semianalytic method for deformation prediction that matches 3D predictions and experimental results to within 10 percent at 50 times the previous computational speed. The ultimate objective of this research is a closed-loop control system for producing steel shells possessing arbitrary curvatures from flat plates.