The pre-processing program prepares

Rapid Prototyping 1
THE RAPID PROTOTYPING
A Paper on Rapid Prototyping By
Student’s Name
Name of the Professor
Institutional Affiliation
City/State
Year/Month/Day

Rapid Prototyping 2
INTRODUCTION
Rapid prototyping is the group of techniques used to fabricate the scale model of a physical part
or a class of technologies that can construct physical models automatically from data of CAD.
About six different techniques of rapid photocopying are available commercially and they have
different strengths.
IMPORTANCE OF RAPID PROTOTYPING
They increase communication effectively, reduce expensive mistakes, lower the time of
development by enabling correcting a product to be made early, increase the lifetime of the
product by adding important features and removing unnecessary features, increase the
complexity and variant of the product, reduce the time for delivery and improve the development
of the product by ensuring better communication [1].
BASIC PROCESS OF RAPID PROTOTYPING
Creation of CAD model: the object to be built is first modeled using the software package of
CAD which is widely available commercially like PRO/ENGINEER. They represent the
3Dmodel very accurately than other hence produce good results.
Conversion to SLT format: this format represents a 3D surface as the triangular planar surface
assembly. The file has the coordinates of direction and vertices of outward in every triangle. SIL
uses the planar elements and is not able to exactly represent elements that are curved [2].
Slice SIT: The pre-processing program prepares the file of SIT to be built. Many programs are
present and several enable users to adjust the location, size, and orientation of the model. The

Rapid Prototyping 3
program of pre-processing slice the SIT into thickness layers from 0.01 to 0.7mm depending on
the built technique.
Construction layer by layer; by using any of the rapid photocopying techniques, the machine
builds one layer from the papers, polymers, and metals powdered. Most of these machines don't
require human intervention since they are autonomous [3].
Cleaning and finishing: this is the post-processing stage and involves removing the prototype
from the machine and detach any support. The prototype may need cleaning, surface treatment
and also painting and sealing improve durability and appearance [4].
RAPID PROTOTYPING TECHNIQUES
Stereo-lithography: this is common rapid manufacturing for producing parts with good surface
finish and high accuracy. The system is stable and the process is automated, has good
dimensional accuracy, perfect surface finish, the process is of high resolution and is the most
used widely [5].