Fundamentals of Liquid Phase Sintering Related to Selective Laser Sintering

Liquid phase sintering is one of the underlying principles that must be modeled and understood when the Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) process is used. This paper describes the initial studies being conducted to measure surface tension of metal alloys used for SLS. A low melting point solder was used to verify the wetting balance and pendant drop techniques and equipment for determining surface tension. The liquid-solid, liquid-vapor, and solid vapor surface tension of 80 Sn - 20 Pb solder on mild steel was determined to be 245, 417, and 662 dynes/cm.