Abstract: Rapid manufacturing of free-form solid objects from CAD designs can be accomplished by the process of Selective Laser Sintering (SLS$+TM$/) introduced by DTM Corp. Prototype construction by the process of Selective Laser Sintering consists of slicing a prototype CAD design into multiple layers, and building a prototype by selectively sintering corresponding layers of powdered material and thermally fusing all the layers to make the final part. Selective sintering on a given powder layer involves delivering thermal energy to the powder in localized spots that are dictated by the corresponding layer of the sliced CAD representation of the part. The localized thermal energy delivery results in localized powder sintering which causes a solidification of the powder that matches the corresponding layer of the sliced CAD design. The powder layer thickness and the thermal energy delivery are matched so that the thermal penetration causes binding of each layer to the previous one. A powder feeding mechanism provides the successive powder layers as required, and an oven chamber is used to bring the powder to a preset thermal level to minimize the localized thermal energy delivery required for local sintering to occur. The incremental localized thermal energy is delivered by a scanned CO$-2$/ laser beam.!7
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