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Full-Text Articles in Manufacturing

Determination And Improvement Of Building Speed In Rapid Freeze Prototyping, Wei Zhang, Guanghua Sui, Ming-Chuan Leu Aug 2000

Determination And Improvement Of Building Speed In Rapid Freeze Prototyping, Wei Zhang, Guanghua Sui, Ming-Chuan Leu

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Rapid freeze prototyping (RFP) is a solid freeform fabrication process that builds an ice part by rapidly freezing water in a layer by layer manner. One advantage of this process is the ability to build ice parts faster than other SFF processes. The factors that affect the speed of contour building and interior filling in RFP are identified. The influence of these factors is analyzed through heat transfer and material flow analyses. A model based on heat transfer analysis is proposed to determine the maximum achievable speed of contour building under stable conditions. Experiments are conducted to validate the performance …


Laser Additive Manufacturing Process Planning And Automation, Jun Zhang, Jianzhong Ruan, Frank W. Liou Aug 2000

Laser Additive Manufacturing Process Planning And Automation, Jun Zhang, Jianzhong Ruan, Frank W. Liou

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper presents a Laser Additive Manufacturing Process Planning (LAMPP) being developed at the University of Missouri-Rolla. The off-line planning recognizes difficult-to-build features from an STL file, selects optimal part orientation and building directions based on the skeleton information of the object geometry, and optimizes the sub-process sequences for deposition and machining. During the optimization of the subpart building processes, collaboration between the deposition process planner and the machining process planner is needed to check the deposition availability and machinability. As a result, tool paths for both the laser head and the machining head are automatically generated.


Study On Water Deposit In Rapid Freeze Prototyping Process, Guanghua Sui, Weihan Zhang, Ming-Chuan Leu Aug 2000

Study On Water Deposit In Rapid Freeze Prototyping Process, Guanghua Sui, Weihan Zhang, Ming-Chuan Leu

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Rapid Freeze Prototyping (RFP) builds a three-dimensional ice part according to its CAD model by depositing and rapidly freezing water in a layer-by-layer manner. To study the water deposit in RFP, assumptions are made based on the deformation of water droplet impinging on a flat substrate, the thermal analysis of a new layer of water deposit, and the characteristics of solidification of a water drop. The equations governing the cross-sectional profile of the water deposit are then established. A model of water deposit is proposed by simplifying the equations under our experimental conditions in RFP. By using this model, equations …


Investment Casting With Ice Patterns Made By Rapid Freeze Prototyping, Wei Zhang, Ming-Chuan Leu, Chao Feng, Rong Ren, Renjie Zhang, Qingping Lu, Jubu Jiang, Yongnian Yan Aug 2000

Investment Casting With Ice Patterns Made By Rapid Freeze Prototyping, Wei Zhang, Ming-Chuan Leu, Chao Feng, Rong Ren, Renjie Zhang, Qingping Lu, Jubu Jiang, Yongnian Yan

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

One of the most promising applications of rapid freeze prototyping (RFP) is making metal parts by investment casting with the built ice parts. The integration of RFP and investment casting allows fast creation of complex net-shape metal parts directly from their CAD models. The advantages of doing so include no part geometric complexity limitation, no experience of parting line design and assembling needed, clean and low-cost of process operation, and good performance. In this paper, we will present our recent study on binder selection, slurry making, ceramic shell making, and the casting results of the metal parts.