1998 / DB reference year
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Author Nakazawa, H. Ishikawa, M. Matsumoto, Y.
Source Journal of the Japan Society of Precision Engineering/Seimitsu Kogaku Kaishi. v 64 n 7 Jul 1998. p 1078-1082.
Abstract Rapid prototyping (RP) has seen much progress in recent years, but the material used has mostly been limited to nonmetallic such as photosetting polymers and paper. Although they have their uses as design models, working models, or as master dies, material limitations restrict their range of applications. Within the context of present-day production trend, such as the production of diverse models in short time, the present study aims to develop a rapid prototyping technology that enables the direct forming of metallic, rather than nonmetallic products and thus expand the technology's application range. This paper introduces a new RP technology named 'free sintering' which can directly fabricate metallic parts as well as subassemblies with built-in mobile parts. Optimum fabricating conditions have been also studied, and high density and high form accuracy were obtained. This result opens the way of practical applications of the new technology. (Auth abstract) [References: 7] XX