Progress on Rapid Prototyping of Ceramic Parts by Selective Laser Sintering

The principle, processing, and characteristics of selective.laser sintering (SLS) used for fabricating ceramic components were reviewed in the present paper. The influences of processing parameters, such as the pre-treatment of starting powders, the laser sintering parameters and the post-treatment, on the as-fabricated parts were analyzed. The potential application area of SLS technique was also discussed. It is demonstrated that selective laser sintering will become one of the most promising technique for ceramic consolidation in the 21th century.