Simulation of temperature field in selective laser sintering of copper powder

The 3-D transient temperature field in selective laser sintering of copper powder were simulated by ANSYS finite element software. The moving Gauss heat resource is achieved by ANSYS Parametric Design Language (APDL). The results show that when the power is constant, with the decrease of the scanning speed, the heat is easier to concentrate, and the temperature is higher. The depth and width of molten pool are obtained with different scanning speeds (v=0.06 m/s, 0.12 m/s and 0.18 m/s) from single-layer to multi-layer sintering. The surface quality of single sintering layer is better with slow scanning speed. Otherwise, the quality of multi- sintered layer is better with high scanning speed, which is consistent with the experimental results.