Study on Automatic Temperature Measuring for Laser Rapid Prototyping

To overcome the disadvantages of conventional temperature measuring method, a novel automatic temperature measuring method for laser rapid prototyping based on thermal imager is presented in this paper. Temperature fields for coated-sand SLS process were measured by thermal imager under the control of computer, and the full contour maps of temperature fields can be used for computer analysis and optimizing of laser rapid prototyping. The optimum processing parameters of coated-sand SLS were obtained by analysis of the measurement results. 3-D CAD model of bevel gear was design and the bevel gear sample was manufactured by laser rapid prototyping. The relative error between sample and CAD model is smaller than 1%.