Brief Analysis of Laser Rapid Prototyping Technology

Knowledge sharing by Guangdong Shunde Teamwork Model Technology Co., Ltd, whom with over 20 years rapid prototyping experience.

Email: ken@gdtwmx.com

Website: www.gdtwmx.com

Rapid prototyping technology is a high-tech manufacturing technology that began commercialization in the 1980s. Since its inception, it has received great attention from academia and manufacturing with new manufacturing ideas, rapid product manufacturing speeds, and flexible product models. Rapid prototyping technology adapts to the development needs of modern advanced manufacturing technology, and its development is very rapid. It has become a new industrial branch and a pillar industry of advanced manufacturing technology in developed countries.

Rapid Prototyping (RP) is an innovative technology that produces complex parts directly from a 3D CAD design in a matter of hours. Since the first rapid prototyping system in 1988, more than twenty systems have been developed, each with some minor differences. Initially, these systems were used in the automotive and aerospace sectors and have since been used in many other areas such as toys, computers, jewelry and medicine.

1 stereo light curing (SLA)

The SLA method is the earliest commercialized and market-occupied RP technology. It uses photosensitive resin as raw material, and computer-controlled ultraviolet laser scans the surface of the photosensitive resin according to the layered cross-section information of the parts to make the resin in the scanned area thin. The layer is photopolymerized and solidified to form a thin layer of the part. After the layer is cured, the workbench is moved down by a layer thickness to apply a new layer of liquid resin to the surface of the previously cured resin, and then the next layer can be scanned. The newly cured layer is firmly adhered to the previous layer and is repeated until the entire prototype is manufactured.

2 Lamination method (LOM)

The LOM method appeared in 1985. First, a layer of foil material (such as paper) is laid on the substrate, and then a certain power infrared laser is used to cut the outline according to the layered information under the control of the computer, and the non-part parts are cut into pieces according to a certain grid shape. After removing, after processing a layer, a layer of foil is placed and rolled with a hot roller, so that the newly laid layer is adhered to the formed body under the action of the adhesive, and then the shape of the layer is cut. This is repeated until the processing is completed. Finally, remove the excess portion of the chopped to get the complete part.

3 Laser Selective Sintering (SLS)

The SLS method uses an infrared laser as an energy source, and the modeling materials used are mostly powder materials. During processing, the powder is first preheated to a temperature slightly below its melting point, and then the powder is flattened by the action of the flattening stick; the laser beam is selectively sintered according to the layered cross-section information under computer control, and the layer is completed. After the next layer of sintering, after removing all the excess powder after sintering, a sintered part can be obtained. At present, the mature process materials are wax powder and plastic powder, and the process of sintering with metal powder or ceramic powder is still under study.

4 Melt deposition method (FDM)

The FDM method was invented in 1988. The molten material sprayed from the nozzle is driven by the XY table, laid on the bottom plate in a sectional shape, and processed layer by layer to finally produce the parts. Commercial FDM equipment uses a wide range of materials, such as cast paraffin, nylon, thermoplastics, ABS, and the like. In addition, multiple nozzles can be used to increase efficiency.

to sum up

The laser rapid prototyping technology combined with the existing precision casting process in the foundry allows the foundry to quickly produce various types of wax molds for large-size, complex-structure investment castings, reducing the cost of a large amount of outsourcing, and for a single piece, The production of small-volume investment castings can eliminate the need for molds, thus saving a lot of mold processing costs, greatly shortening the production cycle, obtaining a lot of valuable time for the development and development of new products, reducing production costs, and also making the precision casting level in the foundry. The improvement has laid a good foundation for ensuring the smooth completion of precision casting production tasks in subsequent models. Laser rapid prototyping technology will be more widely used.