Development status:

The core competitiveness of rapid prototyping technology is its low manufacturing cost and fast market response speed, and manufacturers have gradually adopted rapid prototyping technology due to profit and speed considerations, which has prompted rapid development and rapid application of rapid prototyping technology, especially in Europe. The United States and Japan have been widely used in squadron fields such as automobiles, motorcycles, aviation, military and medical. The typical rapid prototyping processes include layered physical manufacturing, laser sintering, fuse deposition manufacturing, three-dimensional printing, each technology has their advantages. 

Development trend:

1. Direct rapid prototyping technology for metal parts and functionally graded parts

The current rapid prototyping technology is mainly used for making non-metallic samples. Due to its poor mechanical properties such as strength, it is far from meeting the actual needs of the project, so its practical application in the project is greatly restricted. Since the 1990s, the exploration of the realization of metal parts the method of direct rapid manufacturing has become a research hotspot of RP technology. Famous foreign RP technology companies are all conducting research on rapid prototyping technology of metal parts.

2. Concept innovation and process improvement

At present, the forming accuracy of rapid prototyping technology is on the order of 0.01mm, and the surface quality is relatively poor, which needs to be further improved. The strength and toughness of the most important molded parts cannot fully meet the actual needs of the project, so how to improve the existing rapid prototyping process and equipment. It is very urgent to improve the forming accuracy, strength and toughness of the parts and reduce the operating cost of the equipment.

3. Optimize data processing technology

Rapid prototyping data processing technology mainly includes the conversion of 3D CAD models to STL format files and the use of special rp software for parallel plane layering. Due to the inherent defects of STL format files, the accuracy of parts is reduced later; The step effect also reduces the zero-year surface quality and molding accuracy. Optimizing data processing techniques can improve rapid prototyping accuracy and surface quality.

The rapid prototyping technology will be further developed, and its application field will continue to grow. If you are interested in this technology, please contact us at enquiry@nice-rapidtooling.com for more information or free quotation!