A summary about the present process understanding of the laser bending technology is given. Three different bending mechanisms are distinguished. Experimental results showing that at certain parameters an instability behaviour can occur are discussed. A bending mechanism is suggested which explains the stability behaviour. It is shown that laser bending can be extended in order to generate convex shapes, which means a bending away from the laser beam. The possibility of bending towards the laser beam or of bending away from the laser beam opens new ranges of applications, two of which are introduced in this paper.
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