Evaluation of suitability of polypropylene manufactured by selective laser sintering for spare parts applications

Abstract

The production of spare parts can be adapted to distributed supply chains with Additive Manufacturing (AM) and can be carried out without molds. In the white appliances sector, the production of spare parts by AM has gained importance in recent years. However, the suitability and sustainability of the parts produced by AM for use in the final product are of critical importance. In line with this scope, the suitability of the parts produced from polypropylene (PP) powder with Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) technology for use as spare parts was examined in accordance with the determined criteria. In this direction, samples were produced from both the SLS method and the injection molding (IM) method using PP powder. In addition, the effects of the build direction and the sealing post-process were also examined for the parts produced with SLS. The mechanical properties, surface roughness, surface contact angles and water impermeability of these samples were investigated. It was observed that PP materials produced with SLS have a hydrophobic surface, do not leak water even at 0.7 mm wall thickness and less ductile under uniaxial tensile force.