Melting of a subcooled mixed powder bed with constant heat flux heating

Melting of a subcooled powder bed that contains a mixture of two powders wi th significantly different melting points was analytically investigated. Th e effect of density change on the melting process was taken into account in the physical model. The temperature distributions in the liquid and solid phases were, respectively, obtained by an exact solution and an integral ap proximate solution, while the effect of the unsintered powder porosity on t he liquid phase shrinkage during the melting process was investigated. This effect paves the way to simulation of the complication and complex 3-D sel ective laser sintering (SLS) process. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All ri ghts reserved.