The use of off-line part production to predict the tensile properties of parts produced by Selective Laser Sintering

Rapid Manufacturing, and specifically Selective Laser Sintering, has the potential to become one of the most useful manufacturing techniques of the future, largely as a result of the extremely high levels of geometric complexity which can be produced. As the use of these technologies becomes more widespread, so the amount, and variety, of materials available for use in these processes also increases. However, the Selective Laser Sintering process can be both expensive and time-consuming when testing new materials. A method of off-line casting has been proposed here, and the tensile properties of parts produced using this method are compared with the properties achieved in Selective Laser Sintered parts produced in the same materials. For the materials tested it has been shown that the casting method provided an acceptable correlation with the properties of the Selective Laser Sintered parts, rendering this a suitable method of assessing the properties of a Selective Laser Sintering material without the requirement to produce a full build.