SIS Parameters Optimization and Reliable Analysis to Achieve Reduced roughness of PA12 Parts

Abstract

Selective inhibition sintering (SIS) results in easy, flexible, fast and cost-efficient fabrication of functional parts by using powder material for various applications. The functional part is important for operational examination by fabricating the part unswervingly from CAD data. However, poor surface quality is the major disadvantage in SIS procedure. Selection procedure of optimal operating parameters plays a major role in the fabrication of end products. The present study discusses the effect of key contributing operating parameters on the surface quality of the Polyamide parts fabricated by the SIS process. The parameters like heater power (HP), layer thickness (LT), heater feed rate (HFR), machine feed rate (MFR) and bed temperature (BT) were considered in this study. Face-Centered Central (FCC) design was employed as a statistical technique to set the optimal inhibition sintering parameters. Different mathematical models had also been generated in order to develop a relationship between influencing parameters. Further, adequacies of generated models were validated by analysis of variance (ANOVA) approach. Moreover, to decide the survival rate of the SIS parts for industrial applications, the surface roughness reliability with higher error ([Formula: see text]%) was tested by using Weibull statistics. It was observed that HP, LT and HFR are contributing more to increase surface roughness.