A One Dimensional Meshfree-Method For Solving Thermal Problems Of Selective Laser Sintering Process Of Polymer Powders

Abstract

A meshless numerical method based on Radial Basis Function (RBF) is developed for solving the linear heat transfer equation in one-dimensional domains with convection boundary conditions with heat source terms; this method uses the temperature and the time as variables and is equally applicable to problems in different space dimensions. The selective laser sintering is one of the most recent additive manufacturing technologies, in the context of produce a three-dimensional part by fusing the particles of polyamide powders at the surface layer using a CO2 laser. Polymer parts printed in SLS have excellent thermo-mechanical properties, this material is widely used in various domains, including within the medical and aerospace industries. In this study, thermal modeling has been developed, which a different critical area impacting the macroscopic part thermal are included: in the powder bed, the conduction equation dependent of the porosity coupling with the phenomena of convection, with modelization of the distribution of heat source as a boundary condition. Finally, result of the simulation of the temperature at the surface of powder bed using polymer powder, will be presented and compared with other works.