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Team Analytical Report

Team Analytical Report on Rapid Prototyping Study

Introduction

Statement of the problem

There has been a problem in integration of technology in additive manufacturing among majority of the manufacturing firms as they are not certain of equipment to use in prototyping. This result into manufacturing firms creating excess time which is affects the affordable prototyping. A thorough understanding of different aspects required in enhancing additive manufacturing has therefore been a greater problem that needs to be improved in enhancing efficiency in manufacturing. Prototyping is important process in determining the quality of production process and the cost to be incurred in the actual production process of the product. It also determines the product made from the additive manufacturing as it determines the conversion of process of the idea into the 3D printing product (Wang et al, 2017). This is a major problem that affects organizations in the manufacturing industry across different regions across the world. In most cases, the organizations are not aware of the inputs to a cost-effective prototyping without compromising the quality of the product.

Background

Determining the most efficient rapid prototyping has been a huge problem over time due to limited knowledge and understanding of rapid prototyping technology and techniques. Rapid prototyping is an important subject in technology particularly in relation to the development of three-dimensional computer-aided designs. One of the main types of rapid prototyping is additive manufacturing which refers to the industrial production name for 3D printing. In the assistive manufacturing process, the designers are allowed to create three-dimensional geometry directly from the CAD data. This is attained through slicing geometry into finite layers and fabrication of the prototype one layer at a time. With the increased prevalence of additive manufacturing among organizations across the world, there has been establishment of common terminology and standards to enhance quality of the products manufactured under the additive manufacturing process. In determining additive manufacturing and the respective prototyping technology, there has to be a clear definition of different classifications of additive manufacturing technologies. Among the classifications include material jetting which refers to the process of selectively depositing droplets of build material onto a build bed in developing a three-dimensional object (Hofmann et al, 2019).

Also, there is material extrusion which refers to the process of pushing a spool of material through a heated nozzle in the creation of the 3D object in additive manufacturing. In addition to the classifications include the power bed fusion and the directed energy deposition. Directed energy deposition requires the additive manufacturing process to have a focused energy source such as electron bean or plasma arc. In all the classifications of additive manufacturing, there has to be optimal selection of the technology otherwise the outcome and the additive manufacturing process will be affected adversely. In determining the most cost-effective prototyping, there as to be evaluation of major contributions or quality attributes in the manufacturing process and the contribution of each of the attributes to the overall process. After identification of the sub-processes, an assessment of the most appropriate technology to use is done to determine the technology to be adopted in enhancing the most efficient prototyping process in the additive manufacturing process. Among the quality attributes used in determining the most effective prototyping process include impact strength, tensile strength resolution and tolerance, cost-effectiveness and general purpose applications (Dietrich et al, 2017).

Research methods

The research was conducted using the document analysis method in which the researchers collected data from various secondary sources particularly journals and video sources. The sources were searched based on the relevance to the topic and an appraisal of the sources was done. This was done to enhance validity and reliability of the research sources in contributing to the conclusions and interpretations made from the study findings. The search was narrowed to the specific topic asked in the research question.

Results

Question 1- Which technology is best for impact strength?

Selective Laser Melting (SLM) is the most appropriate technology to use in building complex, high-strength parts. It involves melting fine powder layer by layer using electron beam or high-powered laser (Liverani et al, 2017).

Question 2- Which technology is best for tensile strength?

Stereolithography is the most appropriate technology to use in enhancing impact strength. It involves solidification of layer by layer through the use of a computer-controlled ultra violet (UV) layer.

Question 3-Which technology offers the best resolution and tolerances?

Triple injection gives the best resolution due to the ability to allow creation of different colors or on different materials. This is attained through the combination of photo-polymers and Inkjet technology.

Question 4-Which technology is the most cost-effective?

Laminated object manufacturing (LOM) is the most inexpensive process of creating CAD pattern design. LOM builds involves cutting series of thin laminates using laser beams (Dermeik & Travitzky, 2020).

Question 5-Which technology is best for general purpose applications?

Binder jetting technology allows the designers to printing of more than one part at a time. The technology use micro-fine droplets of a liquid which are sprayed on a powder bed to bond the particles of the powder together forming a layer of the part (Ziaee & Crane, 2019).

Reference

Dermeik, B., & Travitzky, N. (2020). Laminated Object Manufacturing of Ceramic‐Based Materials. Advanced Engineering Materials, 22(9), 2000256.

Dietrich, C. A., Ender, A., Baumgartner, S., & Mehl, A. (2017). A validation study of reconstructed rapid prototyping models produced by two technologies. The Angle Orthodontist, 87(5), 782-787.

Hofmann, M., Williams, K., Kaplan, T., Valencia, S., Hann, G., Hudson, S. E., ... & Carrington, P. (2019, May). " Occupational Therapy is Making" Clinical Rapid Prototyping and Digital Fabrication. In Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1-13).

Liverani, E., Toschi, S., Ceschini, L., & Fortunato, A. (2017). Effect of selective laser melting (SLM) process parameters on microstructure and mechanical properties of 316L austenitic stainless steel. Journal of Materials Processing Technology, 249, 255-263.

Wang, H., Soulé, R., Dang, H. T., Lee, K. S., Shrivastav, V., Foster, N., & Weatherspoon, H. (2017, April). P4fpga: A rapid prototyping framework for p4. In Proceedings of the Symposium on SDN Research (pp. 122-135).

Ziaee, M., & Crane, N. B. (2019). Binder jetting: A review of process, materials, and methods. Additive Manufacturing, 28, 781-801.