Rapid Protyping

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Rapid Prototyping and Tooling Technology in Jewelry CAD
Somlak Wannarumon1 and Erik L. J. Bohez2
1

Asian Institute of Technology, [e-mail] 2 Asian Institute of Technology, [e-mail]

ABSTRACT This paper presents the investigation of computer-aided design and rapid prototyping technologies in jewelry design and manufacturing. Computer-aided design (CAD) and Rapid prototyping (RP) technologies play important roles in many industries including the jewelry industry. In this paper, CAD and RP technology is applied to design and build jewelry prototypes, and Rapid Tooling to build molds. The main aim of this paper is to describe the implementation of CAD and RP processes in the jewelry design and manufacturing. The applicability and effectiveness of RP, using Stereolithography Apparatus (SLA), is investigated in the field of jewelry model and mold making, moreover, the methodology is compared to conventional methods in term of time requiring, quality and manufacturing factors. Keywords: Computer-aided design (CAD), Rapid prototyping Stereolithography Apparatus (SLA), Jewelry Design, Jewelry Making. (RP), Rapid Tooling,

1. INTRODUCTION The jewelry industry has traditionally been regarded heavily craft-based, with automation generally restricted to machines in the various individual stages of jewelry manufacture. Jewelry design and model making are time-consuming tasks, which require skills in drawing and hand-made manufacturing. CAD and RP technology in jewelry design and manufacture offers a significant breakthrough [1]. Both allow designers to simplify the iterative design or to easily change or adjust details of the sketches, to facilitate sketching of jewelry products in any sizes, and to shorten the time require to make models. Rapid prototyping technologies are additive processes that fabricate parts layer-by-layer called Layer Manufacturing (LM). They are capable of creating parts with small internal cavities and complex

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