Sintering of commercially pure titanium powder with a Nd:YAG laser source

To understand the process of pulsed selective laser sintering, two different energy coupling mechanisms have to be considered. In a first step, the energy is absorbed in a narrow layer of individual powder grains determined by the bulk properties of the material. This leads to a high temperature of the Surface of the grains during the interaction. After thermalization of the energy, heat flows mainly towards the center of the grains until a local steady state of the temperature within the powder grain is obtained. Afterwards, the surrounding powder properties have to be considered for the further thermal development. According to these model assumptions, a numerical simulation of the heat flow equation has been performed and compared with experimentally obtained titanium plates, which allowed to obtain a process map. (C) 2003 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.