Sintering particulate material
AssigneeBAE SYSTEMS plc
InventorsMark Alfred Potter, Matthew Nicholas Stevens
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Disclosed are methods and apparatus for selectively sintering particulate material, the method comprising: providing a layer (6) of particulate material; providing an amount of a radiation absorbent material over a selected surface portion of the layer (6) of particulate material; providing an amount of a material that comprises a plurality of elongate elements (16) over at least part of the selected surface portion of the layer (6) of particulate material; and providing radiation (8) across the selected surface portion of the layer (6) of particulate material so as to sinter a portion of the material of the layer (6) including causing the plurality of elongate elements (16) to become embedded in the sintered portion of material.
Claims10
A method of selectively sintering particulate material, the method comprising:
- providing a layer of particulate material;
- providing an amount of a radiation absorbent material over a selected surface portion of the layer of particulate material;
- providing an amount of a material that comprises a plurality of elongate elements over at least part of the selected surface portion of the layer of particulate material;
- and
- providing radiation across the selected surface portion of the layer of particulate material so as to sinter a portion of the material of the layer including causing the plurality of elongate elements to become embedded in a sintered portion of material;
- wherein
- the elongate elements are selected from the group of elongate elements consisting of carbon nanotubes and elongate graphene plates;
- and
- providing the amount of the material that comprises the plurality of the elongate elements over at least part of the selected surface portion of the layer of particulate material comprises ejecting from a printing device the elongate elements as the printing device moves over the selected surface portion of the layer of particulate material, thereby aligning the elongate elements in a direction of travel of the printing device.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.