LAUSR

Abstract To solve the problem of the low mechanical properties of wood-plastic composites (WPC) by selective laser sintering (SLS), a tiny amount of Al powders were added into WPC as the reinforcement in this work. Both the mechanical properties and the microstructure of SLS parts were investigated. The results showed that the bending properties of parts first increased to 128.08 % and then decreased to 118.1 % with the increase of Al powder content from 0.1 wt% to 2 wt%. The porosity and sintering neck size of fracture had the same change pattern as the mechanical properties of parts. The strengthening mechanism might be that the good thermal conductivity of Al powder would better facilitate the sintering behavior of composite powder and a stronger interface bonding between wood powders and PES matrix can be obtained. However, the mechanical properties of SLS parts with excessive Al powder decreased due to its reflecting lasers.