International Journal of Technical Research (IJTR)
Vol. 5, Issue 2, July-Aug 2016
RAPID PROTOTYPING TECHNIQUES FOR HETEROGENEOUS
OBJECT MODELING
Vikas Gupta
Department of Mechanical Engineering CDLSIET Panniwala Mota
vikasbrcm@rediffmail.com
Abstract- Although, in recent years, several schemes have
appeared about the computer aided modeling of simple
heterogeneous objects (HO), but relatively few have focused
on rapid prototyping of heterogeneous objects with
simultaneous geometry intricacies as well as compound
material variations. Existing schemes more or less fail to
resolve pending issues pertaining to generalization and
uniformity of representation schemes for rapid
manufacturing of heterogeneous objects. This paper focuses
on resolving such issues and addresses requirements for
rapid manufacturing of HO. A modus operandi has been
proposed for rapid manufacturing of HO. The process
planning tasks like solid modeling, material modeling,
slicing, orientation etc. are discussed in brief. The available
rapid prototyping techniques are classified. The few rapid
techniques capable of fabricating heterogeneous objects are
identified.
Keywords: Heterogeneous Object, Rapid prototyping,
Modeling, Slicing, Process Planning
I. INTRODUCTION
A. Conventional Manufacturing
In the traditional manufacturing processes, lower
product cost and shorter time to market are always the
goals that the industry pursues to achieve
competitiveness. A traditional production process can be
divided into several basic stages such as design,
manufacturing and assembly. Design consists of
functional design, conceptual design and detailed design.
The commonly used methods for manufacturing
engineering products include a number of operations i.e.
casting, milling, turning, drilling etc. In an attempt to
increase productivity, both academia and industry have
made a lot of efforts and taken many effective measures
to improve and enhance every aspect of production
processes. Some of these are:
Many optimization design theories and
methodologies have been developed [18]. Design for
manufacture and design for assembly are the most
successful examples and are widely used in the
industry.
A variety of advanced integrated manufacturing
devices such as computer numerical control
machining centers and flexible manufacturing
systems are employed.
Due to use of these optimization techniques and
advanced manufacturing technologies, the processes and
production costs have been greatly reduced in past few
decades. However, costs in terms of time i.e. prototyping,
testing and fabrication; special tooling and manpower
constitute quite a large portion of the total cost in
conventional manufacturing systems.
Rapid manufacturing processes have reduced
these limitations and provided the faster methods for
product design and development.
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B. Rapid Manufacturing Technology
Rapid manufacturing processes can be
categorized into subtractive manufacturing (High speed
CNC machining) and additive manufacturing processes.
Additive rapid manufacturing processes refer to the
fabrication of physical parts layer by layer under
computer control, which is fundamentally different from
the traditional manufacturing methods.
It involves successively adding raw materials
layer by layer to create a solid of some predefined shape.
Rapid prototyping (RP) is a 2.5 D process, stacking up
layers while conventional manufacturing is inherently a
3D process.
Rapid Prototyping has also been referred as solid
free-form fabrication, computer automated
manufacturing, and layered manufacturing. Rapid
prototyping is widely used for rapid fabrication of
physical prototypes of functional parts (important in the
design stage), patterns for molds, medical prototypes
(implants, bones), consumer products, etc. In some cases,
the RP part can be the final part, but typically the RP
material is not strong or accurate enough.
When the RP material is suitable, highly
convoluted shapes (including parts nested within parts)
can be produced because of the nature of RP. RP has
many advantages when compared to conventional
manufacturing methods, which are briefly discussed
below:
Geometric complexity has a significantly less impact
on the fabrication process.
It involves direct fabrication i.e. it does not involve
tooling, fixturing and other peripheral activities of
conventional manufacturing. Therefore, it is possible
to manufacture physical part from CAD model
directly in a much shorter time.
Modifications can be easily incorporated into the
model during any inter stage, which facilitates the
optimization of design and eliminates the time-
consuming and expensive alterations at a later
production stage. As a result, product development
costs and lead time are substantially reduced. Thus,
RP considerably reduces new product development
costs and the time to reach market.
The principle of RP process is illustrated in Fig. 1 [1].
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Vol. 5, Issue 2, July-Aug 2016
i. Laminated Object Manufacturing (LOM)
ii. Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM)
iii. Paper Lamination Technology (PLT)
iv. Multi-Jet Modeling (MJM)
v. Melted Extrusion Modeling (MEM)
The above technologies either use cutting and
gluing/joining method or melting and solidifying/fusing
method.
Powder by-and-large is in solid state. However,
it is intentionally created as a category outside the solid
systems. Some of the RP technologies that fall in this
class are:
i. Selective Laser Sintering (SLS)
ii. Three-Dimensional Printing (3DP)
iii. Laser Engineered Net Shaping (LENS)
Fig. 1 Principle of rapid prototyping for iv. Multiphase Jet Solidification (MJS)
homogeneous objects v. Direct Metal Deposition (DMD)
vi. Laser-Based Flexible Fabrication (LBFF)
The basic methodology for all current rapid vii. Laser Cladding (LC)
prototyping techniques is summarized as follows: All the above processes employ the
The geometric CAD model of the product to be joining/binding method. The method of joining/binding
fabricated is constructed and converted to Stereo- differs amongst the above systems as some employ a
Lithography (.STL) file format for information laser while others use a binder/glue to achieve the joining
processing to RP set up. effect.
The RP machine processes the .STL file by creating Since the first commercial RP process, Stereo-
sliced layers of the model and transmiting the motion Lithography apparatus (SLA) was invented in 1988,
control signals to RP machine for physical many RP processes have gained popularity e.g. Selective
processing of part. Laser Sintering (SLS), Fused Deposition Modeling
The first layer of the physical model is created. The (FDM), Laminated Object Manufacturing (LOM), Three-
model is then lowered by the thickness of the next Dimensional Printing (3DP), etc. As the use of RP
layer, and the process is repeated until completion of technologies can result in a significant reduction in the
the physical model. prototyping time, current RP technologies are referred as
rapid prototyping technologies.
The model along with supports, if any, is removed.
For different RP processes, different materials
The surface of the model is then post-processed i.e.
(polymer, ceramic, wax, paper, etc.) and material
cleaned and finished.
combining methods (sintering, binding, adhering,
solidifying, etc.) are employed. However, the basic
II. AVAILABLE RP TECHNIQUES principles of these RP processes are either the same or
Since 1990, extensive research and development almost similar.
work has been carried out in the field of rapid prototyping
and in particular, works on laser sintering and deposition. III. HETEROGENEOUS OBJECT MODELING FOR
Commercial implementations of the rapid prototyping RAPID MANUFACTURING
became available in the late 1980s with the Stereo- As discussed earlier, researchers have been
Lithography machine by 3D systems, USA. Since then, focusing on the vast applications of HO. These functional
this industry has flourished and current RP systems can part scan be realized through rapid manufacturing
be easily classified in the following three categories: processes. Conventionally, no material information was
a) Liquid Based considered during modeling, analysis and rapid
b) Solid Based manufacturing. However, the heterogeneous objects
c) Powder Based cannot be dealt with the same strategy and requires a
Liquid based RP systems have the initial form of more advanced model, which should have varying
its material in liquid state. Through a process; commonly material composition information along with part
known as curing, the liquid is converted into solid state. geometric information. Thus, developing a computer-
The following RP systems fall in this category: aided model for rapid manufacturing of HO is one of the
i. StereoLithography Apparatus (SLA) challenging research topics, particularly for graded
ii. Solid Ground Curing (SGC) material objects. The HO model should be intuitive in
iii. Solid Object Ultraviolet Laser Printer (SOUP) representing geometry, topology and material information
iv. Rapid Freeze simultaneously; capable of representing complex solids;
v. Micro-fabrication compact, exact and compatible [2-5]. This is essential to
Except for powder, solid based RP systems are exchange data among design, analysis and manufacturing
meant to encompass all forms of material in the solid process plan domains.
state. In this context, the solid form can include the shape IV. PROCEDURE FOR RAPID MANUFACTURING
in the form of a wire, a roll, laminates and pellets. The OF HETEROGENEOUS OBJECTS
following RP systems fall in this definition:

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 International Journal of Technical Research (IJTR)
Vol. 5, Issue 2, July-Aug 2016
The procedure for rapid manufacturing of
heterogeneous objects is described in Fig. 2.
Heterogeneous object design is a close loop process
which involves three steps: determine the configuration
of the object, design the material variations as per
functional requirement and analyze the object for certain
constraints and loading conditions. The geometry of the
object is modeled, and materials are distributed in the
object domain as per functional requirement. At this stage
the user is still uncertain on whether the designed objects
can really meet the functional requirements in terms of
prescribed properties. Such function analysis could be
properly conducted with available numerical approaches
especially finite element analysis (FEA) methods.
Generally, the CAD modelers assume that all the
necessary geometric, topological and material
information could be easily retrieved at FEA platform
and the designed HO could be properly evaluated via
FEA. Such an assumption for CAD modeling and FEA of
HO creates a gap and makes it tedious for both designers
and engineers to exchange the necessary information in
the entire design process. Thus, the computer aided
model should be capable of transferring material
information along with geometric one for FEA of HO so
that the best configuration can be found out. Once the
object design is optimized, 3D CAD model of HO is
modeled using final designed specifications i.e. both
geometric and material. The computer aided model of HO
is then transferred to rapid manufacturing set up. The
necessary preparation tasks i.e. orientation, support
generation, slicing, etc. to start rapid manufacturing of
HO are termed as process planning tasks. During rapid
manufacturing, computer aided 3D model of HO is sliced
into many thin 2.5D layers having uniform/variable layer
thickness and material distribution. The distribution of
materials in each layer is determined using scan
algorithms. Each layer is tessellated into small regions to
establish the composition of materials at each point.
Based on material composition information, multiple
materials are spread over each region. Finally all layers
are joined together by different methods to form the HO.
Fig. 2 Procedure for fabrication of heterogeneous objects
Thus, computer aided model plays an important
role in the object design and rapid manufacturing of
heterogeneous objects [21]. The computer aided model
should be able to convey the geometry as well material
information at each point within the object and should
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reveal the information at each stage during design and
rapid manufacturing of heterogeneous object.
V. RP PROCESSES CAPABLE OF
MANUFACTURING HO
Rapid Prototyping (RP) processes have the
potential to fabricate heterogeneous objects. These
processes require an efficient and effective computer
aided model that can provide necessary information at
each step during fabrication. The material can be varied
continuously to yield a heterogeneous object with varying
material properties at the selected locations in the object
domain. The deposition of correct material can be
explicitly controlled through computer aided model
thereby providing unique opportunities to selectively
deposit material. This leads to the direct fabrication of
multi-material structures. Besides, embedding of
prefabricated electronics or other components is also
possible (e.g. an outer shell of tool steel with interior
copper cooling channels). Furthermore, different
materials, in varying proportions, can be deposited on a
single layer and the part can be endowed with
microstructure.
There are many RP techniques available and
some of the processes can produce multiple material
objects as proposed by Chen [2], Fitzgerald [4], Jain [12]
and Wu [25]. Some RP systems are developed for
fabrication of heterogeneous objects e.g. systems
proposed by Rao [17] and Tandon [22]. Weiss [24] has
proposed an approach to develop shapes using selective
material additive processes with a far-reaching advantage
of creation of heterogeneous structured composed of
multi-material regions and with prefabricated devices
embedded into the structures. Link [15] has used Shape
Deposition Manufacturing (SDM) to build die cast
inserts.
Selective laser sintering (SLS) of powder
materials seemed to have the potential to produce
functional prototypes as proposed by Caulfield [1], Gao
[5], Jain [11], King [13] and Simchi [20] in their
respective works. Shrinkage, porosity, and low density of
parts are the limitations of SLS that prevent it from
competing against machining. Laser cladding (LC) based
freeform fabrication technology has emerged as a
promising approach to remedy the deficiencies in SLS.
LC offers several advantages including flexibility in
processing materials, fine grain structure, low dilution,
minimal thermal degradation, formation of non-
equilibrium crystalline and amorphous structures, and
extension of solid solubility of alloying elements. Despite
such significant development, the LC-based RP processes
suffer from some drawbacks that include unsatisfactory
surface finish, residual stresses, low dimensional
accuracy, porosity, and crack formation.
To produce high-performance functional
components, such as molds and dies that are free of the
defects mentioned above, a novel LC-based RP
technique, namely, laser-based flexible fabrication
(LBFF), has been developed. This technique is different
from others in the following aspects: (1) use of materials
to make parts with functionally graded composition and
microstructure; (2) application of shaped laser beams to
produce desired surface finish and dimensional tolerance,
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 International Journal of Technical Research (IJTR)
Vol. 5, Issue 2, July-Aug 2016
and to reduce residual stresses and dilution in the
functional layers; and (3) use of a quasi-coaxial nozzle
for powder delivery. Since LBFF involves direct
interactions between moving heat source and powder
materials, the phenomena of mass transport, heat transfer,
and fluid flow makes it rather complex.
Wu [25] has proposed another RP process i.e.
3D Printing which is particularly well-suited for the
fabrication of parts with local composition control (LCC).
3D Printing creates parts in layers by spreading powder,
and then ink-jet binding materials into the powder-bed.
Merz [16] has introduced Shape deposition
manufacturing (SDM) which integrates material
deposition and material removal processes. Another type
of RP process - ballistic particle manufacturing (BPM)
builds prototypes by solidification of molten material.
Besides the BPM process, a similar RP process - fused
deposition modeling (FDM) can be employed to build
multiple material objects.
Developing a RP system for manufacturing of
HO is beyond the scope of current work, however, the
exposure to RP processes capable of manufacturing HO
provides the basic knowledge of process requirements as
this would help in developing a proper support system for
of heterogeneous objects for additive manufacturing.
An essential task in rapid manufacturing is to
plan the fabrication process. It is commonly referred as
process planning and includes orientation determination,
support structure identification, slicing and path planning
for material deposition. The quality of fabricated HO is
based on the sliced data. Slicing of 3D HO model
requires geometric and material information in the object
domain. Different slicing algorithms are extensively
studied in rapid manufacturing community to address
various issues e.g. minimizing the error in contours,
optimizing slice thickness, improving surface finish, etc.
Conventional adaptive slicing methods produce
unnecessary layers that contribute to increased fabrication
time without improving the overall quality of the part
surfaces. An approach was proposed by Tyberg [23] for
adaptive slicing that significantly reduces fabrication
time. The approach had been implemented on an FDM
1600 rapid prototyping system, and demonstrated 17-37
% reduction in fabrication time compared to that of
conventional slicing methods.
The layering error was reduced with smaller
slice thickness. Variable thickness slicing methods are
discussed for handling peaks, flat areas and staircase
effects. Kulkarni [14] has developed an accurate slicing
procedure for layered manufacturing while another
researcher Sabourin [19] has proposed an adaptive high-
precision exterior, high speed interior slicing procedure,
based on the STL file. Commercial software MIMICS
software was used to tailor properties of HO. Based on
stress analysis, energy density was varied in selected
regions to achieve reduced weight and cost.
The accuracy lost due to tessellation in
MIMICS was avoided by using MATLAB as a tool.
Retrieving the geometric and material information during
slicing is a tedious task. Divesh [3] has highlighted the
issues in the translation of CAD models to STL files for
RP purposes. STL files of different tolerances and slice
thicknesses were generated to study the effect of slice
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thickness on surface finish and build time. The layering
error increases, and the surface finish quality and build
time decreases, with increase in slice thickness.
VI. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
In view of the above discussions, the following
issues related to raid prototyping of HO are needed to be
addressed:
An adaptive slice generation procedure is required
for rapid manufacturing of heterogeneous objects.
Slicing errors should be reduced to the minimum, for
better surface finish.
Computing the optimum layer thickness is a tough
task considering geometric and material variations.
RP techniques need point wise diverse data i.e.
geometric and material. It is a challenge to process
the geometric and material information while slicing
such a model into parallel sections. Effective data
retrieval system is also needed for rapid
manufacturing of HO.
The proposed approach is capable to take care of these
challenges and if implemented with generic
heterogeneous object modeling approach is capable of
fabrication multi-material objects especially function
graded materials.
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