Selective Laser Sintering (SLS®, a registered trademark of 3D Systems, Inc.) is an additive rapid manufacturing technique that uses a high power laser (for example, a carbon dioxide laser) to fuse small particles of plastic, metal, or ceramic powders into a mass respresenting a desired 3-dimensional object. The laser selectively fuses powdered material by scanning cross-sections generated from a 3-D digital description of the part (e.g. from a CAD file or scan data) on the surface of a powder bed. After each cross-section is scanned, the powder bed is lowered by one layer thickness, a new layer of material is applied on top, and the process is repeated until the part is completed. Rapid manufacturing is a technique for manufacturing solid objects by the sequential delivery of energy and/or material to specified points in space to produce that solid. ... Lasers range in size from microscopic diode lasers (top) with numerous applications, to football field sized neodymium glass lasers (bottom) used for inertial confinement fusion, nuclear weapons research and other physics experiments. ... The carbon dioxide laser (CO2 laser) was one of the earliest lasers to be developed (invented by Kumar Patel of Bell Labs in 1964), and is still one of the most useful. ...

Compared to other rapid manufacturing methods, SLS can produce parts from a relatively wide range of commercially available powder materials, including polymers (nylon, also glass-filled or with other fillers, and polystyrene), metals (steel, titanium, alloy mixtures and composites) and foundry sand. The physical process can be full melting, partial melting, or liquid-phase sintering. And, depending on the material, up to 100% density can be achieved with material properties comparable to those from conventional manufacturing methods. In many cases large numbers of parts can be packed within the powder bed, allowing very high productivity. Rapid manufacturing is a technique for manufacturing solid objects by the sequential delivery of energy and/or material to specified points in space to produce that solid. ... Polymer is a generic term used to describe a very long molecule consisting of structural units and repeating units connected by covalent chemical bonds. ... Nylon is an Icelandic girl band formed by Alma, Emilía, Camilla and Klara. ... Polystyrene is a polymer made from the monomer styrene, a liquid hydrocarbon that is commercially manufactured from petroleum. ... The old steel cable of a colliery winding tower Steel is a metal alloy whose major component is iron, with carbon being the primary alloying material. ... General Name, Symbol, Number titanium, Ti, 22 Chemical series transition metals Group, Period, Block 4, 4, d Appearance silvery metallic Atomic mass 47. ... Physics In physics, melting is the process of heating a solid substance to a point (called melting point) where it turns liquid. ... Sintering is a method for making objects from powder, by heating the material (below its melting point) until its particles adhere to each other. ...

SLS is performed by machines called SLS systems; the most widely known model of which is the Sinterstation® SLS system. SLS technology is in wide use around the world due to its ability to easily make very complex geometries directly from digital CAD data. While it began as a way to build prototype parts early in the design cycle, it is increasingly being used in limited run manufacturing to produce end-use parts. This article is about computer-aided design. ... Prototypes or prototypical instances combine the most representative attributes of a category. ... Limited run manufacturing is a term used in contrast to mass manufacturing to connote means of manufacturing that are used to make a rather small number of units of a manufactured article. ...

A process similar to SLS was invented by R.F. Housholder who patented the concept in 1979 but did not commercialize it. SLS itself was developed and patented by Dr. Carl Deckard at the University of Texas at Austin in the mid-1980s and was licensed to DTM Corporation of Austin, Texas. In 2001, 3D Systems, Inc. of Valencia, California acquired DTM Corporation and now manufactures and sells SLS systems and SLS powder materials worldwide. ... The University of Texas at Austin, often called UT or Texas, is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. ... Nickname: Live Music Capital of the World, ATX Official website: www. ... A typical stretch of Valencia Boulevard. ...

Additional Links [1] Castle Island's worldwide guide to rapid protoyping