An Investigation of Sintering Nylon 12 and Carbon Black Powders Using IR Radiation

摘要

Rapid Manufacturing (RM) has started to revolutionize some areas of manufacturing by producing of end use products by layer manufacturing. Selective Laser Sintering is currently the most suitable process in RM compared to other available Rapid Prototyping (RP) technologies in the market. The economic study in 2000 indicated that one of the major sources of cost for parts made in series production on SLS machines was the speed of production and hence the machine cost. Thus by reducing the cost of a layer manufacturing machine and increasing its throughput, a far more competitive process may be achieved. This paper describes some initial research into a new process called High Speed Sintering (UK patent No. 0317387.9), whereby involves the sintering of 2D profiles of layers of powder using infrared (IR) radiation rather than a laser. Experiments performed on a simple lab apparatus have shown how the addition of carbon black to standard nylon powder can increase the rate of sintering such that an entire layer may be sintered in 5 seconds using an infra-red lamp. The effects of composition of carbon black on material properties are presented. The paper also presents the effect of pre-heating before sintering and the economic impact of this process in comparison of a few available technologies.