Effect of modified carbon fibres on the performance of the coated sand by selected laser sintering.

The carbon fibres were used to enhance the materials by selected laser sintering. Gas phase oxidation, dense nitric acid and the coupling reagent processing together with dense nitric acid were adopted to modify carbon fibres, the microstructure of carbon fibres surface after treatment were analysed by SEM, and the strength of the composites was tested. The results demonstrate that the carbon fibre modified by 65-68% KHNO3 + 1% KH550 is considered as the optimal method. With the increase of carbon fibres content, the strength of the composite increases first and then decreases within a certain range. When the carbon fibres content at 3 wt-%, the green strength and the post-curing strength reached 0·87 and 9·614 MPa respectively, and the rate increased by 55·21 and 32·17% compared to the unreinforced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]