Direct Selective Laser Sintering of High Temperature Materials

Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) involving a coexisting liquid and particulate solid during the SLS processing can be used to produce freeform parts directly with high temperature materials. Factors such as scanning laser power density, residence time, scan line spacing, the interfacial energies between the liquid and solid phases, powder bed biasing temperature, and sintering atmosphere greatly affect the microstructure evolution in the SLS process. Direct SLS of high melting temperature mixed powder materials was demonstrated using a 1.1 kW C02 laser SLS system. The relationship between the microstructures and the process parameters will be described.