Laser Sintering Washington DC

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Contrary to classical plastic processing methods, the choice of materials for selective laser sintering (SLS) - and thereby also the range of possible application areas - is limited. Recent work has shown that plastics, which previously were unsuitable for SLS, can now be processed into powders for the fabrication of complex components. First trials with POM resulted in parts with appealing surfaces and good mechanical properties.

Additive processes such as selective laser sintering (SLS) permit layered buildup of three-dimensional components directly from CAD data. Contrary to conventional forming methods like injection molding, this toolless approach offers practically unlimited geometric freedom. Thanks to new developments, this technique has outgrown the established application area of prototyping and is now suitable for manufacturing small series of functional parts.

Although many different processes are available, their breakthrough into production applications has been prevented by material-related restrictions. As soon as specific demands are placed on components and their properties processors are frequently forced to compromises. However, for the manufacture of mechanically stressable prototypes in particular, selective laser sintering has become accepted.

A prerequisite for SLS processing is that the material is available in the form of a fine powder. So far, partially crystalline PA12 was mainly used for mechanically highly stressed plastic components. Although other thermoplastic materials such as polystyrene (PS) or polycarbonate (PC) are available as powders, the results are highly porous components with poor mechanical properties. Such materials are typically used for manufacturing lost cores in precision casting. In addition, thermoplastic elastomers (TPE) are used in a limited number of applications.

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