Material properties and fabrication parameters in selective laser sintering process

As part of a manufacturing system, rapid prototyping (RP) should be integrated with other manufacturing technologies. To ensure that this integration is successful and intelligent, it is necessary to understand and incorporate the properties of RP components. Selective laser sintering (SLS) is an important RP method because of its wide range of materials which can be used. The properties of different SLS powders influence the fabrication parameters in the process and these fabrication parameters in turn affect the mechanical properties of the resultant component. SLS components generally require post-processing which can also affect the mechanical properties. To obtain optimum quality output, knowledge of the effects of sintering and post-processing must be incorporated into design and process planning.