Laser Sintering of Sand and Its Application in Rapid Tooling

Abstract

More and more materials are developed for rapid prototyping (RP) technology. Metal, polymer, fiber, paper, wax, etc. have been successfully processed by different RP processes. Silica sand is commonly used in the foundry industry. The process and parameters for directly laser sintering of the silica sand, without any binder, are studied by the authors. The development of direct sand laser sintering process could enhance the method of fabricating sand casting mould. On the one hand, with the RP technology, the fabrication of a complicated pattern has become easier with less manual intervention. On the other hand, the RP technology can be applied to directly fabricate sand casting mould, called rapid sand casting mold. Without the time-consuming procedure of the pattern fabrication, the rapid sand casting mould has the potential of further reducing the lead-time of producing a casting product. The process of the direct sand laser sintering and sand mold casting are presented in this paper.