Rapid prototyping of metallic parts and moulds

Even as several rapid prototyping processes are emerging that can build metallic and ceramic tools directly from slices, this new manufacturing concept continues to suffer from high cost and poor accuracy primarily due to uniform slicing and staircase effect. To surmount this problem, a new RP process that makes use of adaptive slicing with first order approximation of the edges is proposed. In manufacturing, one uses a fast roughing process followed by one or more finishing processes that are slow but accurate. The methodology adopted in the proposed RP process also uses this concept of two-level processing, viz., near-net building of the layer and net-shaping it by high-speed machining. This new methodology, which is at conceptual stage, would result in faster prototypes with better accuracy. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.