2 Particle Size Distribution (PSD)

Powders that have smaller size of particles are needed for the process of SLS

(Selective Laser Sintering) as these types of powders permit description of edges of high

resolution and lead to smooth surfaces. Nevertheless, if a considerable section of powder

consist of smaller particles (for example, less than the diameter of 15 μ), the provision of

new powder layer on an earlier selected layer may result in gashes and fissures on article’s

top surfaces, as high level of interparticle friction amongst particles that are excessively

small leads to a high shear force. Additionally, powders possessing a high portion of

particle size that is excessively small will also unfavourably affect the process of SLS, in

which the article is detached from the powder of its surrounding after the completion of

process of SLS (Selective Laser Sintering).

2.3 Selective Laser Sintering

2.3.1 Introduction to selective laser sintering

Selective Laser Sintering is a process to sinter powder materials using a laser by aiming

it with the help of a 3D model and creating a solid structure (thread.com). Selective Laser

Sintering is a relatively new technology and is mainly focused on developing prototypes and

various component parts. As time passes, this process is moving towards more

commercialization. Selective Laser Sintering is also known as an open shape manufacturing

process. The flexibility of the process allows a variety of materials to be used and because of

this reason it is superior to other available options. The Selective Laser Sintering procedure
involves an infra-red laser beam which heats only the surface of the powder so that the powder

is fused in the cross section, matching the prototype which is being replicated. The procedure

is replicated with another layer of powder. The second layer that is formed bonds with the

initial layer resulting in a 3D shape of a part. The powder used in this process is usually a

polymer. A commercial machine used to carry out this similar process heats the entire bed of

powder instead of doing it layer by layer.

Single Component powder such as direct metal laser sintering is used by some Selective

Laser Sintering machines. Powders produced are commonly by ball milling. However two

component powders are used by most Selective Laser Sintering machines. The powder is

either powder mixture or coated powder (Prasad, 2005). Selective Laser Sintering technology

is famous across the globe because it can make complex geometries with ease directly from

digital CAD data.

2.3.2 General Principle of Selective Laser Sintering

The following discussion will be on selective laser sintering and technologies

derived from Selective Laser Sintering. The binding mechanisms state that SLS derived

technologies can be divided into four categories. Borders are not always clear hence the

classification is not absolute.

Solid State Sintering (SSS)

A thermal process occurring between the temperatures Tmelt/2 and Tmelt where Tmelt is the

melting point temperature of the material is known as solid state sintering. Many chemical

and physical reactions are observed out of this diffusion is considered the most important

(Van Der Schueren, 1996). Neck formation is involved between contiguous powder particles.
The lowering of the free energy when the particles are growing together is the main driving

force for sintering. Solid state sintering’s main advantage is the ability of the process to use a

variety of material. Volume diffusion can be achieved as long as the temperature is high

enough so that it can provide the needed kinetic energy for the transportation of the vacancies

through the grain boundaries (Gusarov, 2001). This however is a slow process which makes

preheating of the powder necessary in order to increase the diffusion rate of atoms and to

achieve a scanning velocity of laser which is acceptable to the process.

The Baikov institute of Metallurgy (Russia), the University of Leuven (Belgium)

and the national academy of science of Belarus all were part of investigating the solid state

sintering of titanium powder by using a soft laser radiation. To avoid the associated

problems with selective laser melting, the consolidation of the titanium powder was

achieved using a low intensity laser light with an increased duration. This led to

temperature being lower than the melting point of Ti. Hence the only occurred mechanism

was the solid state sintering.

Chemically Induced Binding

The direct production of SiC ceramic parts was investigated at the Fraunhofer Institute

IPT (Aachen, Germany) (Klocke, 1997). The interaction time for laser material was very short

and no binder elements were used which excluded the processes of diffusion in Solid State

Sintering. When the SiC particles where subjected to high temperatures the partial

disintegration took place where SiC changed into Si and C. SiO2 is formed from the free Si

particle which then enacts as a binding agent for SiC particles. The parts composed are a

mixture of SiC and SiO2.

Liquid Phase Sintering (Partial Melting)

Various technologies are united by this category. Most of the technologies adopted in

this process leave out a structural material which remains solid throughout the process and

the agent acting as the binder are being liquefied. Cases have been observed where the solid

and the liquid phases are from the same material. The types of grain used are separate grains,

composite grains and coated grains. Technologies that use separate grain have different

structural and binder grains. Ceramic material or metal can be used for the structural material

however the material used for binders are mostly metals. Each individual powder grain is

comprised of both the structural material and the binder material in composite grain.

Mechanically alloying a mixture of two different powders can be used to achieve composite

grains which will cause the particles to be milled welded and fractured together. Coated grains

are those where the structural material is coated by the binder phase.

The technologies adopted in this process do not show the difference between structural

and binder phases instead of the difference between the structural and the binding material is

reflected. There is a difference between areas of non-molten and molten material. Hence a

better name for such technologies will be Partial Melting instead of Liquid phase melting.

Full Melting

Full melting technique is used when there is a need for the full dense object. This

involves mechanical properties of bulk materials and to avoid lengthy processing cycles,
selective laser melting comes into play. Metals and polymers are completely melted with

assistance of a laser beam. The selective laser melting is set aside for metallic materials. All

material may seem suitable for this process but the fact of the matter is there are large

differences in respect to the capacity of the laser absorption, viscosity of the liquid metal,

surface tension etc. University of Osaka (Abe, 2000) as well as the Fraunhofer Institute ILT

(Miller, 2002) and Leuven (1996) have carried out extensive investigation of pure titanium

powder on selective laser melting.

Commercial Machines

Selective laser sintering uses different kinds of lasers. DTM and EOS are commercial

machines used for selective laser sintering and are equipped with CO2 laser beam. The

maximum power of these lasers is between 50 and 200W. According to Van der Schueren

and Kruth (1995), university of Leuven developed machines which were equipped with laser

of 300W and 500W. The future is entitle to continuous improvement and innovations in such

lasers where solid-state and diode pumped laser will be used widely.

The choice of a laser in a machine is not dependent on the material that needs to be

sintered. The surface quality or part density can be greatly influenced by parameters such as

the wave length of the laser, the energy of the laser, and the characteristics of the powder

being used (Tolochko, 2003). The wavelength of the laser should be in accordance to the

material which is being sintered because the absorption of the laser and the wavelength varies

from material to material (Tolochko et al, 2000). The absorption of laser in powders is

relatively high in comparison to the absorption of lasers in solids. The increased absorption
in powders is caused by the pores of the powders as it traps the multiple reflection and

absorption of the beam.

2.3.3 Direct Selective laser sintering of metals

Without using polymer binding, selective laser sintering is a process which allows

direct manufacturing of metallic components in rapid prototyping processes. Another

process which allows direct production of metal components includes 3D cladding process

(Fessler et al, 1998). The alternate process to Selective Laser Sintering has their limitations.

These limitations include the achievement of the complexity of the shape followed by the

accuracy of it. To overcome these limitations the process is combined with milling which

then acts as remedy to these limitations. Metallic parts are also developed by using some

kind of sacrificial polymer binder in selective laser sintering. This provides with an

opportunity to enhance the range of processibility of powders in Selective Laser Sintering.

In order to have an increased range of processible powders a furnace post treatment is

required so that the polymer binder can be removed and the process can come up with plain

metallic or ceramic parts. This process is also known as de-binding. A post densification

operation is required by the porosity of laser sintered part that can be achieved by furnace

post sintering by poor infiltration with a polymeric or metallic infiltrant material

(Benhrendt and Shellabear, 1995), or another way to achieve the same is through hot

isostatic pressing (Das et al, 1998).

A process is developed by DTM Corporation (Austin, USA) which applies polymer

coated steel powder used in Selective Laser Sintering in metal parts. As the sintering takes

place the polymer is melted and acts as a binding agent for the steel particles. Once the

debinding has taken place the porous steel part is then penetrated with bronze or copper
(Kruth, 2003). The properties of the resulting material are very similar to those of plain steel.

DTM has shown impressive progression over the time with improvements in their production

process by a reduction in post processing cycles and the total duration. Rapid Steel powder is

a third generation powder which is also called laser form ST-100, is comprised of 40% bronze

and 60% 420 stainless steel. Debinding of laser form ST-100 can be achieved under 24 h by

a single furnace cycle under pure nitrogen. Thermal conductivity, wear rate, machinability,

hardness and strength are the material properties of the final Selective Laser Sintering parts

and all of this can be improved by the previously mentioned developmental yield (Kruth,

2003).

Laoui et al (1998) studied the direct laser sintering of metal and ceramic powders

eliminating any use of polymer component. University of Leuven has been studying the effect

of laser beam energy on binding power particles in a solid versus liquid state sintering, milled

versus mixed powders, and pre-coated versus loose metal binder phase.

The material which is used in LPS is comprised of two metal powders. The first metal

or the ceramic is of a high melting point which is called the structural material and the second

metal or the ceramic is of the low melting point and is known as the binder. The heat provided

by the system forces the binder to melt and it flows in the pores of the particles which are

non-molten. Two phased or composite LPS materials have good mechanical properties but

the critical advantage of adopting this process is profligate primary binding that occurs during

the laser heating. Capillary forces are the basis of this binding which can be very high. The

kinectics of the solid melt transformation determines the reaction speed. In comparison with

the solid state diffusion of atom this transformation is exponentially higher.

2.3.4 Polymer Properties for Selective Laser Sintering Process

 For the purpose of understanding the most important parameter on characteristics of

material, a better reflection of the most significant parameters on Selective Laser Sintering

powder is essential. Five major factors are normally identified in this connection which

includes particle and powder as well as thermal, optical and rheological behaviour. This

whole system is quite complex as it is related to interrelated assets (Shi et al., 2004). The

properties of this system are generally categorised into extrinsic properties (optical, thermal

and rheology) and intrinsic properties (powder and particle). Intrinsic characteristics are

characteristically given from molecular structure of polymer and are not easy to be

influenced, while extrinsic properties are controlled by processing in anticipation.

Recognising the stimulating features of thermal properties, it is essential to recognise the

sequence of action the process of Selective Laser Sintering. In the system of Selective Laser

Sintering, a laser beam of CO2 is put into use to selectively melt or fuse the particles of

polymer put into a very thin layer. Full combination of particles of polymer in top most layer

of powder is essential along with a linkage with previous layers (Zarringhalam et al., 2006).

For the polymers that are semi-crystalline and are used in the processing of Selective Laser

Sintering this infers that the crystallization must be reserved during the whole process, at least

for numerous layers. Therefore, temperature in processing should be controlled precisely in-

between crystallization and melting and of the polymer. This thermodynamic area of polymer

that is undercooled is known as sintering window of the process of Selective Laser Sintering

for a polymer.

An adequate ability of material of absorbing energy at present wavelength of laser

wavelength is obviously required. This is ostensible for majority of the polymers as the

polymers comprise of aliphatic compounds. The polymers possess, in most of the

circumstances, collective vibrations in the region of finger print infrared enough to captivate

portions of radiation (Williams and Deckard, 1998). Additionally, in the scenario of poor

capability of absorption, an upsurge of energy power of laser can compensate such effect. So

it can be said that absorption is less critical in intrinsic properties.

Surface and shape of single particles control the performance of consequential powder

to a reasonably good degree. In the case of powders used in Selective Laser Sintering,

particles ought to be viable designed spherical. This is required for the purpose of inducing a

behaviour that is free flowing and is essential as powders of Selective Laser Sintering are

disseminated on part bed of machine used for Selective Laser Sintering by blade or roller

systems.

The attainable part of density Selective Laser Sintering is directly associated with the

density of powder and therefore coupled with particles’ shape and their behaviour regarding

free flowing. Particles that are spherical in shape are normally received from the processes of

co-extrusion with non-soluble/soluble mixtures of material. Particles that are potato shaped

are typical for commercially available powder i.e. PA 12 compounded by the process of

precipitation. Particles that are normally acquired through cryogenic milling are inappropriate

in the most of the circumstances and normally fail for the processing of Selective Laser

Sintering (Velu and Singamneni, 2014). Powders those are cryogenic milled end in fragile,

less condensed parts of Selective Laser Sintering with poor properties and low density.

For Selective Laser Sintering powders, a particular PSD (particle size distribution) is

needed to be able processed on equipment of Selective Laser Sintering. The particle size

distribution is generally measured by the systems of laser diffraction. Nevertheless, in fact,

with such measurement the portion of trivial particles is abandoned on frequent basis. The
increased cohesiveness between the particles decreases free flowing behaviour of powder and

prevents the processing of Selective Laser Sintering. As particularly the powder which is

cryogenic milled often represents a high number of fine particles.