Experimental Study on Sintering Parameters in Selective Laser Sintering for ABS

Sintering temperature influences on sintering process essentially. Laser power and scanning speed determined sintering temperature. Preheat to powder is beneficial to improve the surface temperature uniformity. Stress concentration of part is various in different layer depth. Therefore, the influence of laser power, scanning speed, thickness of spreading layer and preheat temperature on part quality in selective laser sintering(SLS) are main factors. Based on laser energy in Gaussian distribution and mechanism of SLS, with manufactured specimen pieces by molding machine AFS-450, orthogonal experimental design and analysis of variance are adopted to post-treatment. The prototyping sintering parameters are optimized. The result and solution of the experiment are the preheat temperature of 100℃, the scanning speed of 2000 mm/s, the laser power of 24W, the thickness of single layer of 0.2mm for ABS resin. This work can provide optimized parameters in SLS for ABS resin. It will be of benefit to improve the part dimensional precision and strength.