Predictive shrinkage error model for selective laser sintering hybrid milling

Selective laser sintering hybrid milling (SHM) is an advanced manufacturing technology that combines the flexibility of additive manufacturing with the precision of traditional machining. In SHM, instead of machining the products after they are completely formed using selective laser sintering (SLS), the milling process is conducted alternatively with the SLS. This allows direct fabrication of extremely complicated and high-precision products on the same workstation. However, shrinkage owing to SLS is a fundamental problem of this technology, because it creates significant dimensional errors in the final product. In this study, a method is proposed to calculate shrinkage error in SHM based on equations built from the data collected using F E A . Consequently, the calculation result is used to compensate the SHM shrinkage error. The experimental results of this study confirm that the error prediction model and the proposed compensation technique work efficiently in reducing SHM error.