Rapid Prototyping And Its Types

By Author: Krishani Eng
Total Articles: 12
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Similar to any other place, Toronto in Canada is also witnessing a rapid and remarkable change in technology. As a result of constant change in technology, Toronto has become a commercial, distribution, financial and industrial centre in Canada. Again, manufacturing industry is not an exception as for this particular industry various cutting-edge technologies have been introduced in past few years.

One of the latest technologies is Rapid prototyping. This technology offers a great benefit to businesses, especially to the manufacturing business. With the help of advanced prototyping, likely problems due to design errors can be easily identified that too before the manufacturing procedure of the product. Earlier, developing a prototype model was very expensive as well as time-consuming. However, with the introduction of CNC machines, the time span has been reduced to just few hours.

Moreover, 3D prototyping is the latest prototyping technique that initiates with a specially developed computer program known as Computer Assisted Design or CAD. The CAD design services allow its users to design a prototype of any ...
... complexity. Today, for any product design in Toronto, almost every mold designer uses rapid prototyping. Using this latest technology ensures hassle-free and faultless product development.

In order to understand rapid prototyping more accurately, following is a brief classification about its main types:

Stereolithography (SLA) – Stereolithography, i.e. also known as 3-D layering or 3-D printing, lets the mold designer produce solid, plastic, three-dimensional (3-D) objects from CAD drawings within shortest span of time. To create a die design, Stereolithography uses UV ray to harden the liquid acrylic polymer layer by layer on a moving stage and after many layers, the desired prototype is produced. The entire procedure is carried on a device known as VAT that is filled with photocurable liquid acrylate polymer. Stereolithography is the highly used type of prototyping due to its accuracy and less time taken.

Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) – This technology is used to change the CAD drawings into physical elements. Fused Deposition Modeling creates ABS plastic prototype models that have high strength and toughness. Basically, FDM works on "additive" principle that project material in layers. First, plastic is melted and then liquefied in the extrusion head and extruded via a nozzle that is made to move on a track identified by the CAD design to create parts. The same procedure is applied over every layer (with one layer at a time) until the exact prototype is built.

Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) - Selective Laser Sintering uses the principle of sintering that is actually a heating process to avoid melting and to develop a consistent mass. Via SLS, metallic or non-metallic powders are sintered using a CAD program directed laser that carefully blends the powdered material. Browse through www.krishani.com for more information.