Simulation of Transient Temperature Field in the Selective Laser Sintering Process of W/Ni Powder Mixture

Selective laser sintering (SLS) is an attractive rapid prototyping and manufacturing (RP&M) technology as well as two-component metal powder has high melting pointer, high mechanical properties and high wear resistance. Hence, it’s meaningful to analyze its temperature field distribution and dynamical evolution rule in sintering process. A three-dimensional transient finite element model of SLS on the two-component metal powder W/Ni has been developed to predict the temperature field distribution in this paper. The dynamically loading of the moving Gaussian laser thermal resource was realized using the element “birth and death” technology and the ANSYS Parameter Design Language (APDL) in the model. Considering comprehensively thermal convection and the non-linear behavior of material properties etc., the temperature evolution of SLS process has been simulated effectively. The interrelation between the temperature field distribution and the processing parameters are analyzed. The sintering width and depth under certain selected sintering parameters are obtained so as to judge the metallurgical bonding performance between substrate and layers. The result of simulation can provide the theoretical basis for selecting reasonable processing parameters.