Metal Selective Laser Sintering

Provides a brief overview of the basic principles of sls machine operation and discusses materials issues affecting direct sls of metals and the resultant properties and microstructures of the parts.

Metal selective laser sintering.

This laser pulses to heat up the metal powder either to just below melting point this is known as metal laser sintering or just above melting point which is known as selective laser melting. This makes it a. Selective laser sintering produce highly durable and complex geometries in production grade nylon sls methods are ideal for durable functional parts for low to mid volume production rapid prototyping and functional testing. The two are instantiations of the same concept but differ in technical details.

Selective laser sintering also falls under powder bed fusion but only involves plastics whereas dmls and ebm only 3d print metals. Both processes work by utilizing a laser to precisely fuse a bed of powder to construct a part from a 3d cad file. Sls is a newer 3d printing process that is often thought of as a cousin to the popular metal 3d printing technology direct metal laser sintering dmls. The two are instantiations of the same concept but differ in technical details.

Selective laser sintering sls is an additive manufacturing am technique that uses a laser as the power source to sinter powdered material typically metal aiming the laser automatically at points in space defined by a 3d model binding the material together to create a solid structure. Selective laser sintering sls is a way to build prototypes early in the design cycle or production parts in a wide variety of applications. This metal sintering or melting process fuses the powder together and creates a solid form. Selective laser sintering sls is a type of powder bed fusion pbf wherein a bed of powder polymer resin or metal is targeted partially sintering or fully melting by a high power directional heating source such as laser that result to a solidified layer of fused powder 70.

Selective laser sintering sls is a powder bed 3d printing technology that produces highly accurate and durable parts capable of being used directly in end use low volume production. It is similar to selective laser melting. Sls machines can print objects in a variety of materials such as plastics glass ceramics and even metal which is a related process known as direct metal laser sintering. Direct metal laser sintering selective laser melting both dmls and ebm fall under the metal powder bed fusion umbrella but have one key difference.

Considers efforts to date to produce parts by direct selective laser sintering sls of metals including post processing to improve structural integrity and or to induce a transformation. Selective laser melting is also explained below. Selective laser sintering sls also just known as laser sintering ls creates tough and geometrically complex components for batch or serial manufacturing in a wide variety of applications. Sls is a relatively new technology that so far has mainly been used for rapid prototyping and for low volume produ.