A Review on correlation of process parameters and part properties in Selective Laser Sintering

Abstract: Growing competition, shrinking product life cycles, the demand for customized products and a scarcity of resources cause the need for innovative manufacturing techniques for small series production. Due to the innovations during the last two decades, the laser sintering process has attained a high technical level, allowing for Rapid Manufacturing in many applications. Sintering processes for the manufacturing of prototypes use metals, ceramics, composites and polymers in the form of powders. However, there are many limitations predominantly in the selection of materials. Therefore, it is required to know the material properties and how the different parameters of the machine influence them. The paper provides a brief overview of Selective Laser Sintering SLS and how the machine parameters influence the mechanical properties of materials. The study presents an overview of selective laser sintering (SLS) work as reported in various journals and proceedings

1.1 INTRODUCTION Rapid prototyping (RP) technologies builds object directly and fully automatically from three-dimensional CAD models without the need of tooling. Additive Manufacturing offers possibilities for small series production of customized products and an increased freedom of design, due to the lack of tools.[3] Thus this technique can help in identifying the basic faults that are expensive to be corrected later, if they are identified when the product is ready for mass production. Selective laser sintering process is influenced by laser, powder material and surrounding, and the sintering properties are determined by laser systems, optic systems, heat transfer, absorption of energy and material properties. Therefore the process is too difficult to control. In this process, a part is built up layer by layer through the consolidation of powder particles with a focused laser beam that selectively scans the surface of the powder bed. Consolidation occurs either by actual fusion of the powder particles or by diffusion bonding.

Earlier, laser sintering had been utilized to build parts from polymeric materials like ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene), nylon, glass-filled nylon, and polycarbonate plastics, while metallic materials like low-carbon steel, copper, titanium, super-alloy, etc. have also been tried. [19] However, the actual production of metallic objects by SLS is much more complicated and has been pursued through two different approaches, known as indirect and direct laser sintering. [20] Various lasers such as CO2 laser, Nd:YAG laser, diode laser, disk laser and fibre laser have been developed for selective laser sintering. Recently, the fibre laser has been receiving attention due to its advantages of high power, high beam quality, simplicity, high electrical to optical efficiency, reliability, excellent thermal properties, robustness and low running cost. [1] Laser Sintering Process is mainly divided in two categories. Namely direct SLS and indirect SLS. Indirect laser sintering involves the sintering of metal powders

either mixed with some form of a binder or coated with a polymer. Hence, powder particles are consolidated by the melting and binding capacity of low-melting-point polymers, which are eventually burnt off. In direct laser sintering, high-density objects are created by the sintering of metal powders without the aid of any binders Research in recent years has identified the potential of this process to build metallic components that can act as functional prototypes. In fact, with the proper choice of input conditions, SLS can build parts with microstructure and mechanical properties equivalent to or closely resembling those of parts produced by conventional manufacturing. [2]

factors and part properties. Aim of the review here is to find the correlations between process parameters, mechanical properties and the parts density as per the previous researchers. The resulting correlation models can be used to predict part properties and to improve process parameters and to validate the new researches. [2] 1.3 MATERIALS USED IN LASER SINTERING There are a variety of materials that can be used in Laser Sintering Process and that are the beauty of this technique. This unique feature gives this technique an upper hand when compared to other rapid prototyping machines. [22] The materials can vary from plastic polymers to advanced polymeric materials like ABS, polycarbonates and powder plastics to metal mixtures like FeCu, FeSn, CuSn just to name a few to alloys like Al2O3, FeO, NiO, ZrO2 and CuO. Other materials like Silica, Cement, Nylon-Glass Composites, metal- polymer powder, coated sand and composites can also be used. Recently some dedicated materials have been developed for laser sintering processes. Materials like Cibatool-Express 2000, Rapid Steel, Truform, Protoform, Durafarm and Direct steel have been tested for the laser sintering process. But these materials are still in infant stage of use and await further investigation. [22,3] Usually a material mixture is used with one of the materials being of low melting point. These materials melt fast and act as a glue to join the other material. Such materials are termed as sacrificial binders. Many times these binders are not required as single material fuses itself to bind itself. [19] 1.4 LASER SINTERING PARAMETERS Several researchers have presented many papers with their analysis of research. The correlation between the

1.2 HISTORY OF SLS In 1892 US patent (No. 473901) Blanther proposed a method to constitute a topographic map by layered manufacturing. After 1950s number of related patents were proposed. However the fundamental development came out in 1980s. Charles W. Hull was inspired by ultraviolet light curing resin and proposed the stereolithopgraphy (SLA). There are 274 patents registered in US during 19861998 as issued in Terry Wohlers annual RPM Report. [21] Selective Laser Sintering was developed and patented by Ross House-Holder in 1979, but it was commercialised by Carl Deckard at University of Texas in Austin in 1980s. DTM was the first company to fetch this technology in market. [] Laser sintering has reached a high technical level within the past two decades. However, processes still show poor repeatability of part quality, process interruptions or defective parts. Knowledge about the process needed to avoid such problems is still insufficient. Therefore, an enhanced process understanding has to be established. Literature provides only little information on correlations between main influencing

process parameters and part properties in laser sintering process has been the subject of study in the last two decades. Various researchers have used various input and output parameters for their study and analysis. The various input parameters can be summarised as below: [1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 16 and 19] Laser parameters Laser Power Laser Scan Speed Spot Size Interval Spot Ratio Stepping Distance Geometric Parameters Particle size Orientation Particle Shape Hatch spacing Scan pattern Layer thickness Material Properties Absorption and Reflection Melting point The various output parameters can be summarized as below: Tensile strength Hardness Porosity Density Warpage Dimensional Accuracy Strength Production Time Surface Finish 1.5 LITERATURE REVIEW Wegner A. et al [3] devised the link between the input parameters viz. scan speed, scan spacing, layer thickness and interaction between scan spacing and layer thickness and output parameters like part strength. The outcome was a non-linear relationship with multiple parameter

Byeong-Don Joo et al[1] in his study optimized the metal powder of FeNi-Cr for the laser sintering process taking three parameters viz Laser Power, Scan rate and layer thickness. In his study he intended to find the relation of these parameters with surface quality. He concluded that with change in layer height energy input also changes proportionally. If the scan rate is lower than the optimised, balling can be caused and higher scan rate may result in weak bonds. Increased layer thickness increases line width. With increased power or decreased layer thickness, the surface quality improves at optimised scan rate. Tian, X et al [2] in his study four parameters (laser power, scan speed, hatching space, layer thickness) have been studied for porcelain material using Taguchis L9 orthogonal array. He concluded that the higher energy density and lower hatching space produces higher sintering temperature. There is appreciable increase in shrinkage with increase of scan speed or hatching space and decrease with increase of laser power. Higher hatching space and lower energy density produces higher final mechanical strength. S. Dingal et al [4] used the iron powder and seven input parameters viz. laser power density, laser pulse on time, laser scan speed, stepping distance, interval spot ratio, particle size and layer thickness and output parameters checked under these input variables are density, porosity and hardness. The analysis of the study gives that the higher layer thickness leads to pores and higher particle size gives lower porosity. Also higher laser pulse on time gives higher porosity. Yang Laixia et al [7] proposed the AHP modal for the study of Laser power, Scanning Speed, Thickness of Layer and Scan Spacing for analysing their effect on Strength, dimensional accuracy, warpage and production time and gave the optimal

values for the input parameters to get the best results. Amol Ghanekar et al [9] optimised the SLS parameters for surface roughness, thermal expansion, dimensional accuracy and part strength using five input parameters. These are laser power, layer thickness, orientation, scan vector length and powder age. The optimization was done using D- optimality technique which gave multi-objective results. The experiments proved that layer thickness reduces the strength, scan vector affects the density of the part and more laser power means more melting temperature and stronger bonds. Anish Sachdeva et al [18] used surface response methodology for investigating surface roughness by optimizing laser power, scan speed, scan spacing and bed temperature. The paper concludes that laser power is the most important factor which reduces the surface finish. Rong-Ji Wang et al [23] investigated the parameters if SLS to optimize part shrinkage using neural network technique. The experiment concedes that the shrinkage ratio get decreased with increase in layer thickness, laser power and bed temperature. H. Mazhar et al [24] studied the effects of powder geometry for part strength and surface finish. Numerical simulations are used for optimization and later correlated with experiments. 1.6 CONCLUSION As per the study of the literatures, a lot has already been done and a lot still awaits explorations. As Warren G Ragland III showed in his study why DMLS cannot be used in surgical items as of now. Thus the correlations are still to be optimized and better techniques still to be found out to

make this process more useful and trustworthy. 1.7 FUTURE SCOPE Rapid prototyping is the need of the hour. In last 20 years it has emerged as a new age technology and is fast replacing the conventional barriers of manufacturing and designing especially. Various techniques have been designed and proposed, each having some edge over the other but SLS stands outstanding due to its capabilities of using a vast variety of materials in its operations. However, progressions still demonstrate poor repeatability of part quality, process interruptions or flawed parts. The knowledge needed to evade such problems is still inadequate. Collected work provides only few correlations between process parameters and part properties.

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