Study on the laser sintering process of veined red snail / polylactic acid composite powder

Drawing on the composition of shells and the microstructure of cross-laminated sheets, laser sintering technology was used to prepare laser-sintered fabrications of veined red snail powder as an inorganic material and polylactic acid (PLA) as an organic material. The process was optimized using the response surface method based on one-way experiments by adding veined red snail powder. At a 13.27-W laser power, 1.2-m/s scanning rate, 0.17-mm scanning spacing, and 0.23-mm delamination thickness, the bending strength of the veined red conch powder/PLA composite powder parts reached 8.53 ± 0.15 MPa, with an error of only 1.7% from the model’s predicted value. Under these process conditions, the characterization of laser-sintered parts with 0, 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 wt% veined red snail powder revealed that parts with 15 wt% exhibited optimal mechanical properties, showing a 155.9% improvement over pure PLA parts.