Research and implementation of large-area sintering technology based on image-shaped laser

Purpose Selective laser sintering (SLS) is an essential technology in the field of additive manufacturing. However, SLS technology is limited by the traditional point-laser sintering method and has reached the bottleneck of efficiency improvement. This study aims to develop an image-shaped laser sintering (ISLS) system based on a digital micromirror device (DMD) to address this problem. The ISLS system uses an image-shaped laser light source with a size of 16 mm × 25.6 mm instead of the traditional SLS point-laser light source. Design/methodology/approach The ISLS system achieves large-area image-shaped sintering of polymer powder materials by moving the laser light source continuously in the x-direction and updating the sintering pattern synchronously, as well as by overlapping the splicing of adjacent sintering areas in the y-direction. A low-cost composite powder suitable for the ISLS system was prepared using polyether sulfone (PES), pinewood and carbon black (CB) powders as raw materials. Large-sized samples were fabricated using composite powder, and the microstructure, dimensional accuracy, geometric deviation, density, mechanical properties and feasible feature sizes were evaluated. Findings The experimental results demonstrate that the ISLS system is feasible and can print large-sized parts with good dimensional accuracy, acceptable geometric deviations, specific small-scale features and certain density and mechanical properties. Originality/value This study has achieved the transition from traditional point sintering mode to image-shaped surface sintering mode. It has provided a new approach to enhance the system performance of traditional SLS.