Study on the temperature field distribution of the interface and process parameter optimization for selective laser sintering of PEEK

Abstract This study investigates the defects occurring at the interlayer interface during the selective laser sintering (SLS) 3D printing of samples due to unreasonable settings of printing parameter variables. In order to improve the degree of warping deformation, the state of the temperature profile at the interlayer interface is analyzed during the printing process. This study combined transient thermal analysis of the temperature field with SLS 3D printing experiments to optimize the parameter variables of the laser energy density to reduce defects in the sample. The temperature field distribution pattern at the top layer interface was analyzed numerically using ABAQUS, and the temperature at any node location within the bottom layer interface of the sample was monitored at different laser energy densities. Subsequently, SLS 3D printing was performed to prepare tensile samples with the same parameter settings, followed by measurements of warping and characterization of tensile properties. The study examines the warping deformation and tensile performance of samples under two sintering modes—“low‐power slow sweep” and “high‐power fast sweep”—with laser energy density as a parameter variable. The results indicate that through transient temperature monitoring at the nodes using ABAQUS, it was found that when the laser energy density is set at 0.5 J·mm −2 , the maximum temperature difference occurs at the nodes before and after the passage of the laser heat source, leading to severe warping deformation in the samples, which is further validated by the SLS 3D printing experiments. Through the monitoring of node temperatures via transient numerical calculations and experimental validation, the optimal process parameters were determined to be a laser energy density of 0.2 J·mm −2 and a laser power of 15 W, yielding an average flatness measurement of 0.062 mm and a tensile strength of 45.1334 MPa. Highlights Optimized the laser energy density and printing mode to reduce the defects of SLS. The temperature distribution of the interface near the bottom was analyzed by ABAQUS. Optimal parameters were discussed by the results of ABAQUS and experiment.