SLS of metal or ceramic components can be done directly or indirectly. Indirect selective laser sintering involves melting of an organic binder phase to produce 'green parts'. After the laser sintering step, the binder phase is removed and the density of the part is improved by furnace sintering or infiltration. Direct selective laser sintering does not involve a sacrificial binder phase and the material is directly sintered or melted to produce parts (Dewidar et al. 2008).Different types of organic binders are already examined to fabricate ceramic parts via SLS: waxes (e.g. stearic acid by Liu et al., 2007), thermosets (e.g. phenolic by Evans et al., 2005), amorphous thermoplastics (e.g. PMMA by Subramanian et al., 1995), or (semi-)crystalline thermoplastics (e.g. polyamide by Gill T.J. et al., 2004). T.J. Gill et al. used SLS to produce SiC/polyamide composite parts. The polyamide (PA) fraction was melted as a result of laser beam irradiation, gluing the SiC particles together. However, the production of pure SiC parts by binder burnout and subsequent sintering was not studied.
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