Finite Element Simulation of Combined Forming of Selective Laser Sintering and Cold Isostatic Pressing

Selective Laser Sintering could manufacture high complex metal parts in short time but with high porosity and low strength. The components from Cold Isostatic Pressing have excellent performance with uniform organizational structure, high size precision, and high density. It, however, could not form high complex parts because of the difficulties of bag manufacture. So it will be a good method to combine Selective Laser Sintering and Cold Isostatic Pressing to make complicated metal parts. In this paper, the specimens of stainless steel were made by the combined Selective Laser Sintering and Cold Isostatic Pressing forming route. And the simulation of Cold Isostatic Pressing was carried out by finite element method and Drucker-Prager-Cap constitutive model in ABAQUS/Explicit computer program. The property of metal powder was measured by experiments. The effects of bag on Cold Isostatic Pressing have been discussed. It is different from the Cold Isostatic Pressing of metal powder that the bag has little influence on both shape and size of the specimen. The results of simulation show a good agreement between the experimental results and the calculated results. The simulation can give a useful direction to dimension and shape designs of the combined forming of Selective Laser Sintering and Cold Isostatic Pressing.