Figure 1. Laser bending.
The above-cited papers represent only a small part of the literature on this topic. Generally,
theoretical and experimental research activity is addressed to solve very specific problems of
interest for the applications. On the other hand, very limited activity is spent on fundamental
topics although several fundamental problems remain unsolved. Bearing this in mind, the aim
of this paper can be stated: it consists in providing the overall setting of mathematical models,
suitable to describe the heat transfer process related to the technological system which has been
briefly described above. The model has to be regarded as the essential background toward its
application to specific forming problems with special attention to optimization.
The contents are proposed in three more sections which follow this introduction. The second
section deals with the phenomenological description of the process with special attention to the
description of the thermal field in transient behavior. The third section deals with the selection
of the proper heat transfer models suitable not only to describe large temperature deviations,
but also heat wave phenomena and the related deformation analysis. The last section outlines
the research perspectives along the research program which is started by this paper.