Surface Finishing of Selective Laser Sintering Parts with Robot

Abstract

Compared with conventional subtractive manufacturing technologies, RP has great benefits in shortening the design-manufacture cycle time of a product. Even ifmechanical properties are not considered, most RP products still cannot be directly used in applications until the requirements for overall surface quality are satisfied. To improve the overall surface quality of Selective Laser Sintering parts, a robotic finishing system has been developed as a part of an ongoing research project. A finishing tool is held by a robot and moved according to programmed paths generated from the original CAD model data. This paper describes the experimental system in detail and shows that the surface roughness, dimensional accuracy, and geometrical accuracy can be improved.