What is SLS 3D Printing and How Does It Work? – Selective Laser Sintering
What is SLS 3D Printing?
Additive manufacturing technologies build a component up by adding material, rather than whittling it down by removing material from a workpiece. The most well-known form of 3D printing is probably fused filament fabrication (FFF). This printing discipline is arguably the most ubiquitous and relevant to popular knowledge, since it's the form used for recreational and domestic purposes. However in industrial settings, other types of 3D printing are preferred, including "selective laser sintering," SLS.
How Does SLS 3D Printing Work?
A selective laser sintering 3D printer belongs to the "powder bed fusion" family of fabrication. That term also gives a sense of the "sintering" in SLS: solidifying a powdered material through heat and pressure. The process begins with a powdered polymer that’s selectively sintered by a laser, causing the particles to fuse. Next, the fused particles are laid down layer by layer to progressively form the desired item. The object cools down before being removed and subjected to any required finishing process.
Laser sintering 3D printing aligns well with various goals, providing a perfect alternative to injection molding (or other processes) for realizing low-or-medium-volume production runs.
Numerous finishes and lead times are possible, imbuing SLS with further versatility and utility. Waterproofing? Metal plating? No problem! And since SLS requires no support, it can replicate sophisticated shapes and complex geometries with relative ease while minimizing errors. SLS also facilitates efficient, economical material use, as the leftover powder is reused.
SLS 3D printing can handle a large number of materials, as well as various additives, including aluminum and fibers of glass or carbon. Materials like thermoplastics each offer their own advantages, whether it’s stiffness, lightness, weight-to-strength ratio, elasticity, and resistance to the spectrum of stressors: chemical, electric, UV, thermal, tensile, compressive, among others. Suitable choices also yield isotropic or anisotropic qualities. Or more superficial features, such as specific aesthetics, textures, or surface finishes.
As such, the products of SLS 3D printing make excellent prototypes, mockups for consumer feedback or functional tests, jigs and fixtures, prosthetics, medical devices, surgical models, as well as countless other implements, tools, and components.
You can ensure success on your next additive manufacturing job by adding Beltim & Associates to your team! So reach contact us or get a free quote today!