Material stability investigation of polyamide material before and after laser sintering

Abstract

Polymers are the long chain organic materials that are held together by directional covalent bonds. These kind of organic materials are either synthesized or naturally obtained and they have wide range of application in the medical field due to its physical properties, chemical properties and multifarious processing technique. For the past two decade, these polymers were used to produce variety of medical devices and implants by laser sintering. Since laser based additive manufacturing technique was a thermal process, there may be a change in the material property after sintering and which may affect the usage of the polymer in medical field. This work presented here aims to investigate the material property of biocompatible eos PA12 polymer powder and a laser sintered part. The Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) with Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDAX), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) and Differential Scanning Calorimeter (DSC) analysis were carried out to investigate the properties. The experimental investigation carried out in order to get insight into laser-material interaction and the corresponding results indicated that the laser energy influences the material properties of polyamide powder.