Laser Technology: Additive Manufacturing

Abstract

Selective Laser Sintering, and in general Additive Manufacturing Processes are becoming mature technologies; in the sense that after many years of market introduction there are some well-known manufacturers that provide fully operative systems that are even utilized for direct parts manufacturing. However, the parts final users are becoming more and more demanding, so they can integrate the AM parts in complex assemblies; thus increasing the materials requirements and the final part’s properties. Building into previous works on AM materials, the purpose of the present paper is to explore the properties yielded by the introduction of Glass short fibre randomly to polyamide and to assess the performance of the probe parts taking into consideration the AM manufacturing direction in the building platform and the Energy Density applyied to the operations. Folowing to a literature review, the paper first describes the statistical approach and the samples preparation. Then, the samples are characterized by tensile tests and the properties of the material are described for the different manufacturing strategies adopted. The outcomes of the work are highly applicable to the AM parts manufacture process, as the construction of parts in the building platform is usually dictated by the objective of optimizing the use of the total volume; thus implying that not all parts are manufactured in the same main construction direction.