Superposed closed-control loop for the polymer based laser sintering technology

There are lots of reasons for using the polymer based laser sintering technology, such as the high degree of design freedom as well as the ability to manufacture small batches economically. The part properties which are reachable by state-of-the-art systems are able to fulfill the customer requirements in terms of series and spare part production, as well as in terms of functional prototypes. However, there are still some deficiencies which constrain the widespread use of this technology. The present work deals with an approach to improve the part quality by a systematical reuse of information about preceding building processes. The hitherto common process chain, consisting of data preparation, building process and quality inspection is extended by a unit, which feeds back adapted information into the data preparation step. By implementing a superposed closed-control loop, an iterative as well as a system-dependent optimization of the part quality should be achieved.