Abstract: Selective laser sintering (SLS) is a new process to prepare the polystyrene (PS)/ Al2O3 nanocomposites. In this paper, with different laser power and other processing parameters unchanged, the morphology, density and mechanical properties of the sintered specimens were investigated. It was found that nano-sized inorganic particles are uniformly located in the PS matrix and the maximum density of the sintered specimens with pure PS powder reaches 1.07 g/cm3, higher than 1.04 g/cm3 that of the sintered specimens with mixture powder. Due to strengthening and toughness of the nano-sized Al2O3 inorganic particles, the maximum notched impact strength and tensile strength of the sintered part mixed with nano-sized inorganic particles are improved greatly from 7.5 to 12.1 kJ/m2 and from 6.5 to 31.2 MPa, respectively, under the same sintering condition.

Key words: Selective laser sintering (SLS), Nanocomposites, Polystyrene (PS)...