High Speed Sintering: The Next Generation of Manufacturing

Summary

High speed sintering (HSS) is a novel powder‐based additive manufacturing technology intended to maintain the attractive features of laser sintering (LS) while addressing the drawbacks such as machine cost and process speed. The process operates layer‐by‐layer in which the layer of powder is deposited, an inkjet printhead then deposits a radiation absorbing material (RAM) onto the desired area, and an infrared lamp then irradiates the entire surface. The HSS process may be broken down into a number of distinct steps required for each build. As for many Additive Manufacturing (AM) technologies, the first step is the production of the computer‐aided design (CAD) model. Print density has also been shown to influence part density due to the amount of RAM having a significant effect on the properties of high speed sintered parts. The presence of inkjet technology presents a vast number of opportunities for HSS.