Selective Laser Sintering(SLS) is a powder-based Additive Manufacturing process in which parts are built by sintering of selected areas of layers of Polyamide (PA12) powder using CO2 laser. The purpose of this work is to study experimentally the effect of orientation of the component, fill scan spacing and layer thickness on the surface roughness (Ra) of the customized bone implant fabricated through SLS technique. For this study computer tomography scan data was taken and converted to standard triangulation file (.stl) format using mimics software. Taguchis Design of Experiment approach was used for this study. An L27 Orthogonal Array (OA) of Taguchi design was used. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was then performed on S/N (Signal-to-Noise ratio) to determine the statistical significance and contribution of each factor on the surface roughness. The results indicated that orientation and layer thickness are significant parameters to cause appreciable improvement in surface finish.

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