Thermal and mechanical behaviours of pre-coated sands for selective laser sintering

The thermal and mechanical behaviour of three types of pre-coated sands for selective laser sintering was characterised. First, the possibility of predicting the temperature evolution in the material with time under assigned heating conditions was verified. Then, a model aiming to calculate the degree of cure of the resin for a fixed heating history was assessed. Finally, hardness tests were performed on the sands, in order to measure their mechanical properties as a function of the thermal history. A strict correlation was found between the hardness data and the predicted degree of cure of the resin.