Rapid Prototyping

Presentation Report

By Chandan Mulherkar

200736

What is Rapid Prototyping?

RP is a additive manufacturing technique used to make parts or assemblies by fusing together thin layers
of cross section. It takes input from a CAD file suitably converted to STL format.

It is intended mainly for the quick and easy production of prototypes without using time consuming
conventional production processes.

RP is capable of producing parts which are impossible to make using conventional techniques, such as
internally ribbed structures.

Technologies used for RP

 Stereolithography

 Electron beam Melting

 Selective laser Sintering

 Fused deposition modeling

Stereolithography
 Stereolithography is an additive manufacturing process using a vat of liquid UV-curable
photopolymer "resin" and a UV laser to build parts, one layer at a time. On each layer, the
laser beam traces a part cross-section pattern on the surface of the liquid resin. Exposure to
the UV laser light cures, or, solidifies the pattern traced on the resin and adheres it to the
layer below.

 After a pattern has been traced, the SLA's elevator platform descends by a single layer
thickness, typically 0.05 mm to 0.15 mm. Then, a resin-filled blade sweeps across the part
cross section, re-coating it with fresh material.

 Stereolithography requires the use of support structures to attach the part to the elevator
platform and to prevent certain geometry from not only deflecting due to gravity, but to
also accurately hold the 2-D cross sections in place such that they resist lateral pressure
from the re-coater blade.
Selective laser Sintering
 Unlike some other additive manufacturing processes, such as Stereolithography (SLA) and Fused
Deposition Modeling (FDM), SLS does not require support structures due to the fact that the
part being constructed is surrounded by unsintered powder at all times.

Electron beam Melting

 EBM allows the use of metals as it uses an electron beam to trace out the desired cross section,
inside a vacuum chamber. The other methods do not allow metal use.

 The process is 95 percent efficient in its use of energy, which is 5 to 10 times greater
that laser technology. Second, the vacuum supports processing of reactive metal alloys like
titanium.

 Gives fully dense metal parts.

Fused deposition modeling
  A plastic filament or metal wire is unwound from a coil and supplies material to
an extrusion nozzle 

 The nozzle is heated to melt the material and can be moved in both horizontal and vertical
directions by a numerically controlled mechanism, directly controlled by a computer-aided
manufacturing (CAM) software package.