An experimental study into the effects of bulk and flow behaviour of laser sintering polymer powders on resulting part properties

The results helped to validate the basic input from previous studies interconnecting the powder behaviour with the properties of sintered part's. The majority of the components with increased tensile properties were manufactured with powder fractions that showed enhanced bulk density and enriched flowability. The part's surface quality demonstrated a high dependence on the packing and the surface roughness of the raw powder bulk. A strong connection between the packing density of the powder bulk and the porosity of the sintered parts has been revealed for the observed polymers. In contrast to previous studies which have rarely taken into account the characteristics of the un-sintered powder and correlated them to the properties of components fabricated by LS, this work provided a novel approach describing the interconnection between the powder behaviour and the part properties.