Modeling the Radiative Heat Transfer in Selective Laser Sintering of Polymers: Scattering Effect

A numerical model, coupling radiative and conductive heat transfer in a polymer powder bed and providing a local temperature field, is proposed. To simulate the polymer sintering by laser heating as in additive manufacturing, a double-lines scanning of a laser beam over a thin layer of polymer powder is studied. An effective volumetric heat source, using a modified Monte Carlo method, is estimated from laser radiation scattering and absorption in a semi-transparent polymer powder bed. In order to quantify the laser-polymer interaction, the heating and cooling of the material is modeled and simulated with different types heat sources by both finite element method (FEM) and discrete element method (DEM). To highlight the importance of introducing the semi-transparent behavior of such materials and in order to validate our model, the results are compared with works of other researchers taken from literatures.