New ferro powder for selective laser sintering of dense parts

The paper describes a new powder composition specially developed for selective laser sintering (SLS). The aim is to obtain a ferro powder that can be sintered without need for a (sacrificial) polymer binder and that results in quasi dense parts that do not need any post-processing like furnace sintering, infiltration or HIP. The powder is a mixture of different types of particles (Fe, Cu, Ni and Fe3P). The composition and mixture ratio are justified by using phase diagrams. The powder has been tested using an own developed Nd:YAG SLS machine. The influence of process parameters (laser power, scan velocity, scan spacing and scan strategy) and the microstructural characteristics have been investigated. Attention is devoted to the binding mechanism (liquid phase sintering, through melting) and to the quality of resulting parts (density, balling effect,...).