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As RP becomes more mature, material properties, accuracy, cost and leadtime have improved to permit it to be employed for the production of tools.
Some traditional tool-making methods based on the replication of models
have been adapted and new techniques allowing tools to be fabricated
directly by RP have been developed.
This section reviews indirect and direct methods for RT that are, or shortly
will be, available for production runs of up to several thousand parts.
Rapid Tooling refers to mould cavities that are either directly or indirectly
fabricated using Rapid Prototyping techniques.
All this leads to the next step which is for RP industry to target tooling as a
natural way to capitalize on 3D CAD modeling and RP technology.
With increase in accuracy of RP techniques, numerous processes have been
developed for producing tooling from RP masters
The most widely used indirect RT methods are to use RP masters to make
silicon Room Temperature Vulcanizing (RTV) moulds for plastic parts and as
sacrificial models or investment casting of metal parts.
These process which are suitable for batches of 1 to 20 parts are usually
known as Soft Tooling Techniques.
It can be used to intake multiple wax or plastic parts using conventional
injection moulding techniques.
It produces short term production patterns. Injected wax patterns can be
used to produce castings.
Soft tools can usually be fabricated for ten times less cost than a machine
tool.
Hard Tooling
Patterns are fabricated by machining either tool steel or aluminum into the
negative shape of the desired component.
Steel tools are very expensive yet typically last indefinitely building millions of
parts in a mass production environment.
Aluminum tools are less expensive than steel and are used for lower
production quantities.
The higher the melting point of the wire material, the more difficult it is to
keep the pattern cool.
Therefore, it is common to spray zinc or aluminum based alloys directly
onto RP models.
It also is possible to spray higher melting point materials onto RP models,
but it is necessary to be a little devious.
One technique is to apply a metallic coating by using electroless plating or
physical vapor deposition.
Once there is a metallic coating on the model, heat will be transmitted
more readily across its surface.
Rapid Tooling (RT) is general terminology for using a technological process
to rapidly produce mold inserts for injection molding of plastics and
casting of metals.
Rapid Tooling is a means of transferring non-functional models constructed
from the range of Rapid Prototyping techniques into a functional
prototype part.
This is normally carried out using a casting process, such as investment
casting.
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The pattern is embedded along it parting line into plasticine with in a chase.
The sprue, gates and ejector pins are added and after the exposed half of the
mould is coated with a release agent, a thin shell of 2-3 mm thick of a low
temperature molten metal is deposited over it.
If they are subjected to high temperature, RP models can soften and distort and
so not all metal deposition techniques can be employed.
Spray metal Deposition Techniques:
Most common metal deposition technique Two types
Gas metal Spraying: Involves a low melting point alloy that passes though the
nozzle similar to paint sprayer. A metal wire, usually lead/tin is melted by a
conical jet of burning gas atomized and propelled onto the substrate.
Arc metal Spraying: Also called TAFA process involves a gun in which an
electric arc between two wires causes them to melt. The molten material
[Al or Zn] are then atomized by a compressed gas that sprays it.
Once a metallic shell is created, water cooling lines can be added and the
shell is back filled with epoxy resin or ceramic to improve the strength of
the mould.
These materials are selected because their coefficient of thermal expansion
is close to that of the Nickel or Zinc the shells are made from.
Al powder is usually mixed with epoxy resin or the ceramic to increase their
thermal conductivity.
After back filling material is cured, it is machined flat. The second half of the
tool is built following the same procedure.
Main disadvantage not suitable where the part possesses features as
projections which partially block the metal spray configuration or where
recesses my be too deep to spray into completely.
Metal spraying is typically used on models that have large gently curved
surfaces and is indeed most suited to this type of geometry.
It is very difficult to spray into narrow slots or small diameter holes. When
these types of features are included on the model, it is common to make
brass inserts, locate them in the model and spray around them.
When the model is removed from the shell, the inserts are permanently fixed
into the shell. These inserts also are stronger than the shell material, which
is weak and breaks easily if formed as a tall, thin feature
Applications:
Spray metal tools have been used in many applications including:
Sheet Metal Forming,
Injection Molding,
Compression Molding,
Blow Molding And
Pre-preg Sheet Lay Up.
Various plastics have been molded including;
polypropylene,
ABS,
polystyrene and difficult process materials such as reinforced nylon and
polycarbonate
Other Deposition Techniques: Nickel Electro forming, Nickel vapour
Deposition.
At this point, the original pattern is pulled from the silicon mould which can
be placed back together and repeatedly filled with hot wax or plastic to
fabricate multiple patterns.
These tools are generally not injected due to the soft nature of the material.
Therefore the final part materials must be poured into the mould each
cycle.
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Epoxy Tooling
This process is used for manufacturing prototype parts or limited runs of
production parts. Epoxy tools are used as [53] moulds for prototype plastic
injection, moulds for castings, compression moulds and reaction injection
moulds.
The fabrication of the mould begins with the construction of a simple frame
around the parting line of the RP model.
Sprue gates and runners can be added or cut later on, once the mould is
finished. The exposed surface of the model is coated with a release agent and
epoxy is poured over the model.
Aluminium powder is usually added to the epoxy resin and copper hose
cooling lines can also be placed at this stage to increase the thermal
conductivity of the mould.
Once the epoxy has cured, the assembly is inverted and the parting line
block is removed, leaving the pattern embedded in the side of the tool just
cast.
Another frame is constructed and epoxy poured to form the other side of the
tool.
When the second side of the tool is cured, the two halves of the tool are
separated and the pattern is removed [54].
Epoxy mould
3D KeltoolTM Process.
This process is based on a metal sintering process introduced in 1976. The 3D
KeltoolTM process converts RP master patterns into production tool inserts
with very good definition and surface finish. It includes the following steps
[58]:
(a)Fabricating master patterns of the core and cavity;
(b)Producing RTV silicone rubber moulds from the patterns;
(c) Filling the silicone rubber moulds with a mixture of powdered steel,
tungsten carbide and polymer binder with particle sizes of around 5 mm to
produce green parts (powdered metal held together by the polymer binder)
duplicating the masters;
(d) Firing the green parts in a furnace to remove the plastic binder and
sintering the metal particles together;
(e) Infiltrating the sintered parts (70 per cent dense inserts) with copper in a
second furnace cycle to fill the 30 per cent void space;
(f) Finishing the core and cavity.
The material properties allow inserts produced using this process to
withstand more than 1 000 000 moulding cycles.
The cooling of the mould is completed by blowing air on the mould faces as
they separate after the injection moulding operation.
To increase both the resistance to erosion and the thermal conductivity of
Direct AIMTM tools, the deposition of a 25 mm layer of copper on the mould
surface has been investigated [58].