Publication

Abstract : Selective laser sintering (SLS) is an additive manufacturing process having no limitation in usage of variety of materials to manufacture parts. However, usage of SLS for producing functional parts is limited, due to their dimensional accuracy and surface finish. This work presents a method to determine the optimal process parameters for fabricating Glass filled polyamide plastic parts in SLS with reduced overall costs and enhanced component integrity. Parameters layer thickness, scan spacing and laser power are optimized by adopting grey relational analysis (GRA) method for better dimensional accuracy and surface finish. In selective laser sintering process, the above said parameters are found to have a greater influence on deciding the quality of a final product and reduction in process time. Sequential steps involves understanding effect of process parameters, selection of specimen for fabrication, fabrication of parts with different parameter combinations, testing of fabricated parts and using the results to find optimum parameters using GRA.