The growth of rapid prototyping services and applications has been astronomical over recent years especially in China. We have all been puzzled how complex ideas and designs are brought to light with such ease, in this article we are going to break down rapid prototyping china to help you understand more about this unique process.
Brief Overview of rapid prototyping
Rapid prototyping is mainly a group of techniques used to create a product or part quicker than prototyping process. The whole procedure enables designers and engineers to shorten the development and design phase significantly.
Rapid prototyping technology is an additive process that’s mainly centered on a 3D data with its materials layers being enjoined on each other to form a product or part.
Main techniques used in Rapid prototyping China
- Fused deposition modeling
During this phase the product is constructed directly from a 3D CAD data, these process mainly entails the combining of thermoplastic components layer by layer.
- Stereolithography (SLA)
This technique is mainly utilizing a selective polymerization of a photosensitive resin — the technique work by exposing the top layer of light-sensitive liquid polymer with an ultra-violet beam printing the patterns of the product.
SLA is the most popular rapid prototyping china as its cheaper and less consuming while producing a far superior part.
- Laminated object manufacturing
It’s based on thin layers of metal foil; paper or plastic are spread out constructing a platform which a cutting computer controlled device removes excess materials and tracing out of patterns
- Selective laser sintering (SLS)
This technique uses a powerful laser beam which melts and merges the powdered components that are spread out into layers. For this phase, the powdered materials are accurately measured while being spread out using a rotating roller table
- 3-D printing
It’s a process of creating three-dimensional parts of product using a digital file through an additive process that consists of merging successive layer till a final solid product is produced.
This technique is crucial in creating sophisticated and difficult shapes or sizes while at the same time using fewer raw-materials during the production process, how awesome is that!
Steps of rapid prototyping
- Creation of 3-D files
One of the most important to make rapid prototyping possible is the production of 3D data. In this step design offices specialized in creating 3D files are used. For parts with critical tolerance levels can be designed using 2D parts.
- Costing
In this step, the project is costed and analyzed according to their own technical and quantity features of the machined parts. It’s an essential step as the feasibility test of the parts are carried out.
- Production
After the final validation of different components production can officially kick off. However, it should be noted before launching production samples can be produced to know what the end product would look like.
- Testing phase
After completion of the production phase, testing verifies pre-established requirements are met, and it performs as predicted. If validation cannot be carried out its crucial to modify the original 3D plans.