Numerical simulation of heat transfer in the selective laser sintering process of Polyamide12

Abstract

Selective laser sintering (SLS) process is the most perfect seven three-dimensional printing processes that produces three-dimensional parts from a polyamide or metal powders in stratified, the need of this process is in all different fields, the medical field, art, aerospace and other industries. The thermal phenomena generated by SLS is essential to analysis the microstructure, mechanical properties, residual stress, and all deformation of produced parts. This study applied three-dimensional element finite (EF) method by COMSOL Multiphysics software to investigate the temperature evolution in SLS. The surface heat source and the dependence of material properties on temperature are considered. It is found that the developed element finite (EF) method is able to capture the high gradients of temperature in the center of the spot laser of polyamide powder 12 (heat affected zoon). The effects of physical proprieties and laser parameters are also investigated, it was observed in the polyamide 12 powder bed, the temperature increase with the increase of pre-heating temperature and also with increasing the power laser which sintered the polyamide powder bed, the temperature increases. Also, this simulation helps us to control all the parameters and optimize the SLS process of polyamide 12, to make a perfect polyamide part manufactured by this machine with excellent quality.

Keywords

• Laser sintering
• Additive manufacturing
• Heat transfer. Finite element method