Modeling the Physics of Selective Laser Sintering Using the Discrete Element Method

Abstract

Selective laser sintering (SLS) is a typical procedure in powder-based 3D printing technology that produces items with great accuracy and precision.The powders used in SLS are granular and discontinuous, making them difficult to simulate using traditional computational techniques that rely on continuous methods, such as the finite element method (FEM) or finite difference (FD).This paper presents a system for accurately depicting the physical interactions of particles affected by a moving laser source using the discrete element method (DEM), performed numerically in Python.This DEM framework was used on polyamide 12 powder with various laser powers (2W, 4W, 5W) and scanning speeds (0.5m/s, 1m/s).The results and comparison with previous literature confirm that the DEM framework accurately depicts the temperature distribution in the laser-scanned powder bed.The effect of laser power and scan speed on fused surface size is explored and corroborated using previous studies, confirming the DEM's dependability and applicability for modelling powder-based additive manufacturing processes.