The heat and mass transfer under laser sintering of powder mixture

A model of heat and mass transfer during the sintering process of two-component powder mixture under a laser beam irradiation was formulated and numerically investigated. The model takes account of the solid particles movement due to shrinkage with of the density change of the powder mixture and also takes account of convective fluxes under the influence of surface forces and gravity. The flow of the liquid phase of the low-melting component of the mixture was described by the generalized Darcy law. The space-nonhomogeneous and non-steady distributions of the phase saturations and of the temperature field were obtain what allowed us to predict the dynamic of the phase-change process depending on the properties of the powder mixture (porosity, permeability, thermophysical properties of the components) and also depending on the parameters of the laser beam. The effect of the settlement of the powder mixture surface was described.