Manufacture of the die of an automobile deck part based on rapid prototyping and rapid tooling technology

To produce the metal die of an automobile deck part of high quality at low cost with a short cycle, a new method of manufacturing the die, based on rapid prototyping and rapid tooling, is proposed in this paper. First, the technological process of rapid processing (RP) technology and the large-scale rapid processing and manufacture (RP&M) equipment SSM-1600 that is based on the innovative idea of concurrent processing in a divided field are introduced. The SSM-1600 equipment supplies a gap in the field of making large prototypes. The technology of the unbaked ceramic mold casting process based on RP technology is also introduced. The method of 3D non-linear coupled thermo-mechanical FEM analysis is adopted to analyze the dimensional accuracy of the die of an automobile deck part during the casting solidification process. The simulation result can be used to modify the CAD model to further improve the precision of the die, The system of manufacturing the die of an automobile deck part based on rapid prototyping has gained success by the verification of practical production. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.