Rapid Manufacturing: An Industrial Revolution or a Passing Fad?

摘要

Some of the Rapid Prototyping (RP) processes have seen enormous improvements in the recent past and are racing towards Rapid Manufacturing (RM), the ability to produce end use parts directly from CAD files. While this sounds quite exciting, considering the time-to-market constraints constantly faced by manufacturing engineers, the key question to be answered is whether the processes are truly capable of achieving the required quality standards. This paper addresses this question considering the mechanisms of material consolidation in a couple of RP processes that are currently considered sure candidates for RM. The conclusion is that RM is a possibility, but depends on the outcomes of research and development activities yet to be undertaken in many directions.