Study on the indirect selective laser sintering of 316L for the optimization of process parameters

During the indirect selective laser sintering of stainless steel parts,the precision of forming parts will be reduced.Due to the temperature gradient field,greater residual stress and warpage will be produced.To improve the sintering quality of stainless steel parts,the paper presented numerical analysis on coupled thermal stress field of 316Lsintering.Then the results were compared with experiments.These results demonstrated the simulation was consistent with the physical deformation trend of sintering experiments.It verifies the correctness of the simulation.Using the simulation program and orthogonal test method,four process parameters(laser power,scan spacing,scan speed and preheating temperature)are optimized.A group of optimum process parameters was obtained.These results provide a powerful criterion to get good process parameters of SLS with important economic value and promising application.