Numerical Simulation of Marangoni flow field of Selective Laser Sintering of Polyamide 6 Powder

In this paper, we investigated polyamide 6 single layer laser sintering process. The temperature filed distributions with different energy density were achieved using the finite element method. In addition, we investigated the Marangoni flow filed and achieved the relationship between process parameters and Marangoni flow field. The results indicate that the Marangoni flow strongly influences the temperature field and the fluid flow: with the energy density increases, the convective heat transfer becomes intensely, so the heat in the pool center spreads faster, the high temperature area becomes relatively smaller, and the molten pool becomes wide and shallow. According to the relationship between energy density and Marangoni flow field, we can optimize the SLS process parameters and get the better parts. (paper)