Rapid Manufacturing is a new area
of manufacturing developed from a family of technologies
known by a broad term including the use of (RP) rapid
prototyping, (RT) rapid tooling, and the direct use
of layer manufacturing technologies to produce final
products rapidly.
RM processes have previously produced the achievement
of equally improving products and reducing their
development time; resulting in the development
of the Rapid Tooling
technologies, which improved its own processes implementing
Rapid Prototyping techniques.
Rapid Manufacturing
technology allows manufacturers to create
products without tools,
furthermore enables previously impossible geometries
to be made. It is economically realistic to use existing
commercial Rapid Prototyping systems to manufacture
series parts in quantities of up to 25,000 and tailored
parts in quantities from one-off to hundreds of thousands.
This
kind of manufacturing can be extremely cost-effective
and the process is significantly more flexible
than conventional manufacturing. Rapid Manufacturing
is
an innovative Industrial Revolution for the digital
era that provides excellent advances in the manufacturing
industry in emerging research and development in
product design and materials science,
as well as in manufacturing
engineering, CAD/CAM and manufacturing process. |
Rapid Manufacturing uses technologies
originally developed for Rapid Prototyping. Existing
RP technologies are far from ideal, as the processes
have not been developed or optimised for production
manufacture. New research projects are developing
dedicated Rapid Manufacturing technologies using
a range of new and emerging materials.
Design for Rapid Manufacture
_________________________________________________
Researches are implementing new design protocols
and working methodologies to increase the maximum
benefit of part production using layer-wise manufacturing.
One of the most important emerging technologies
that will drive the future manufacturing
is rapid Manufacturing
(RM). Using Additive Layer Manufacturing technologies
such as Laser Sintering, Laser Consolidation and
even Stereolithography and manufacture end-use
component parts straight from 3D CAD-to-part
represents the
most important principle of RM.
Tooling elimination is another of most notable
advantages of RM. Eliminating the constraints
of tooling, RM
provides manufacturers the ability to produce
cost-effective lots of one-off parts,
and multiple product design
iterations at no additional cost. RM has now
become a typical manufacturing process
for some polymer
and metal-based components, being cost effective
the manufacture of tens of thousands of polymer
parts.
Due to RM uses layer logic manufacturing, components
can be manufactured with no split lines, or
with complex internal and re-entrant
features reducing
manufacturing and assembly costs.
Significant time and costs can be saved when
compared to traditional manufacturing. |
The advent of Rapid Manufacturing will generate
deep transformation on existing supply chains.
The transfer and manipulation of electronic data
will characterize manufacture and no longer constrained
by the availability and location of tooling.
RM also comprises the quick fabrication of
the tools required for mass production,
such as specially
shaped moulds, dies, and jigs. Many different
layer-manufacturing processes have been developed,
using an increasing range of materials. The
parts produced have progressively increasing
size and
durability, as the quality has improved.
Layer manufacturing is being used frequently
to fabricate the parts both for production
tools and functional prototypes. The application
of
layer manufacturing to make the components
used in production is designed by Rapid Tooling
(RT),
which has been largely employed for injection
moulding, investment casting, and mould casting
processes. |
Addictive production offers the potential of using
multiples material as well as to control the located
intermediate geometry - and micro-structure of
a piece.
This means that can be improved the functionality
of a part in ways that were previously impossible
with existent industrial methods.
Materials can
be selected designed for the mechanical properties,
thermal, optical or others, and then they can even
be deposited precisely just to certain point physically,
improving or changing those properties besides
the capacity of the own inherent material. |
Rapid Manufacturing uses technologies originally developed for Rapid Prototyping.
Existing RP technologies are far from ideal, as the processes have not been developed
or optimised for production manufacture. New research projects are developing
dedicated Rapid Manufacturing technologies using a range of new and emerging
materials.
There
is about of some
dozens of materials of RP/RM commercially
available today, understanding all the classes
of materials
as plastics, metals and ceramic. In contrast,
a database of selection of existent plastics
lists
more than 40,000 active graduations exclusively
in plastics. Materials recycled compounds
can be difficultly or impossible of using.
|
CAD-CAM drives all the addictive production directly
into processes, while turning theoretically possible
to avoid completely the tooling use.
In practice,
it cannot still be possible frequently because processes
and materials limitations of one type or other, but
the technology of complementary rapid tooling can
present a beneficial commitment. However, when possible,
the complete elimination of tooling applications
results in enormous savings of time and money.
It
turns possible to manufacture parts and products
in small amounts, or using materials and design parameters
that could be inconceivable. |
Fundamental advantages and disadvantages of rapid
prototyping and/or simulation on rapid manufacture
(RM):
We should balance the benefits of RM against current
significant limitations. Unless there are imminent
needs for a specific advantage that RM provides,
the balance frequently favours a conventional approach.
However, with technical problems solved in a lot
of fronts the balance leans more frequently in
favour of RM.
Although
it should be recognized the rapid prototyping
can be a rapid solution for the industrial
development of a product and production tools,
or to test the
design, mechanism or marketing. However per
times it should be opted for the virtual prototyping,
where a wide range of products can be studied
and
verified with reduced costs, and/or simulation
or advanced simulation where components can
be evaluated, and simulated in every conditions,
including
materials and processes. |
The production speed compared to standard industrial methods is slower. For some
estimates, existent methods of mass production are faster 10 to 1,000 times.
The finishing and precision as well cannot attain the same level of the conventional
technology.
Secondary operations are also requested, as removal of supports and
manual finishing. In a production situation where multiple parts are manufactured,
it can add secondary operations and origin addition of time. There are still
current limitations of dimensions of pieces that are more restrictive than in
the standard methods.
However these processes are incomparable for
the production of small series, as in the
case of tools for health care, dental,
the one-off products industry,
small line products, tailored products, etc.
|
TRENDS & BACKGROUND
Faster to Market: The New Best Practices - Ten years
ago time to market new vehicles industry designs were
from 60 months to now 18 to 24 months.
Better management focus, better concurrent engineering
practices and standards for design, virtual
prototype and validation. Better collaboration
and information
technologies, simulation, Knowledge Management
across development teams, both within and beyond
the corporate.
Better tools as advances in solids modelling,
computer-aided engineering systems, project
management tools, product
data management software applications.
Managing the creation, propagation and storage
of
data, these tools ensured
wide engineering and work language that
dramatically compressed cycle times for development.
The radical change in manufacturing starting from
Rapid Manufacturing (RM) is based on completely
new additive
manufacturing techniques that produce fully
functional parts directly from a 3D CAD model
without the use of
tooling.
This offers the potential to change the paradigm of
manufacturing, service and distribution with opportunities
for producing highly complex and customised products.
Rapid product Development introduces now a wide
range of tools and technologies, which involves
evaluation
and advanced expertise to obtain the best
results for each industrial chain. Meanwhile
no industry in worldwide
market will continue indifferent to the new
approaches in Product Development due to the
interaction amid
the diverse potential actions and results.
The revolutionary processes, and promising
new technologies are changing completely
the profile
of design and manufacturing,
involving as never before Research & Development,
Technologies Transfer, and computer science applications. |
presentation