Experimental and analytical study of ice part fabrication with Rapid Freeze Prototyping

Process called Rapid Freeze Prototyping. This process builds a three-dimensional ice part by depositing and rapidly freezing water according to its CAD model in a layer-by-layer manner. It provides a means to build a solid part with the potential of better performance than other rapid prototyping processes, including use of cheap and clean material, potential to build accurate ice parts with excellent surface finish, and ease of building color and transparent parts. An experimental system with a low-temperature building environment, a three-axis positioning mechanism, a water feeding and extruding subsystem, and control hardware and software has been built. Experiments conducted on this system demonstrate the feasibility of making three-dimensional ice parts. A heat transfer analysis helps understand the freezing process and provides useful information to the selection of building parameters.