Study Of Strengthened Polystyrene By Nano-Montmorillonite On Selective Laser Sintering

Based on the Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) and the Polymer/Layered Silicate (PLS), and only a few study of the PLS nano-composite prepared by SLS is reported, this paper is put forward. The experimental material is the pure PS powder,the PS/OMMT(organic nano-Montmorillonite) mixed powder and the PS/EP(Epoxy Resin)/OMMT mixed powder. The sintering experiment is conducted in the HRPS-â…¢rapid prototyping machine. The structure of the sintered piece is characterized through XRD and SEM, and the mechanical properties of the sintered pieces are tested by the use of Mechanics testing device. The results show that the nano-orginc-montmorillonite is intercalated by PS and PS/EP during the sintering process, then the PS/OMMT composites and the PS/EP/OMMT composites are produced; The mechanical properties of the PS/EP/OMMT sintered part is the best in the three experimental material; compared with the pure PS powder sintered part, the tensile strength and flexural strength of the PS/OMMT sintered part have been improved, but the cantilever impact strength drops off in some sort.The melting intercalation mechanism of the PS/OMMT and PS/EP/OMMT composites prepared by SLS are analysed in this paper. It's considered that the polymer intercalates into the layers of the nano-montmorillonite in term of the liquid transfer mechanism in sintering process. The higher is the polar degree of the polymer, the better is the melting intercalation reaction. The percolation theory has been applied to qualitatively explain the changing trends of the properties of polymer/OMMT nanocomposite. In the laser sintering process, the influence of the laser power and the scanning speed on the mechanics properties of the composites is analyzed. The result indicated that when other parameters are certain, the mechanical properties of all the three material increases along with the laser power increase, but drops along with the scanning velocity increase.The research work in this paper has a certain theoretical and practical significance. But the sintering experimentation of this paper needs to be perfect, and it needs further research. At last several proposals and expectation are put forward for the further research.