A New Approach for Getting More Homogeneous Temperature Fields in Selective Laser Sintering of Polymers.

During the last 10 years, selective laser sintering of polymers (SLS), one of the most promising additive manufacturing technologies, strongly developed from rapid prototyping towards rapid manufacturing. However, main drawbacks have to be overcome, the limited range of processible materials and the lack of reproducibility of geometrical and mechanical properties in dependence on part positioning and processing parameters. The precise configuration of a homogeneous temperature field might be one of the most crucial factors for stable and reproducible processing, especially when new materials are to be tested. To date, commercially available systems work with build chamber temperature gradients ranging between 7 to 15 K, ignoring the thermal influence of exposure. Within this work, to date available systems for temperature measurements will be evaluated in terms of applicability in a powder based process. In addition, a new method for calibrating the temperature field of a SLS machine with an eight zone heating system will be introduced. Finally, the resulting temperature field is applied and verified by the powder based process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]