Multi-axis additive rapid prototyping
 
 
          
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Neil Sewell, Martin Jenkins, Richard Everson

50 ring sphere

Rapid Prototyping (RP) is the relatively high-speed fabrication of physical parts from Computer Aided Design (CAD) data and is used in numerous industries, from product development to surgical implant manufacture. All conventional RP systems employ a horizontal virtual plane slicing process to process CAD data in order to produce layered bottom-up build pathways to perform RP. A novel Vertical Machining Centre (VMC) add-on hot-melt deposition system for performing RP has been developed which enables investigation of both layered and non-layered RP.

Neil Sewell has recently completed a PhD investigating the feasibility of multi-axis rapid prototyping using virtual machining centres. A preliminary paper Algorithms for multi-axis rapid prototyping gives some details. The picture at the top shows a simulation of a sphere constructed by wrapping material (often a glue), and the photograph below shows a bent pipe constructed using the multi-axis technique.

Pipe bend