ABSTRACT
Rapid Manufacturing (RM)—also called Rapid Prototyping and Manufacturing (RP&M), Additive Fabrication (AF), Layer Manufacturing, Material Ingres Manufacturing, Free Form Fabrication (FFF)—is a relatively new group of manufacturing technologies developed since late 1980’s. With these technologies physical parts can be manufactured based on numerical definition (3D-CAD) automatically layer-by-layer without any tools or hand work in a geometry free process. (Kruth J.P. 1991)
Conventionally manufacturing technologies in mechanical engineering were classified to material forming technologies and material removing technologies. Forging and casting are examples of material forming technologies and milling and sawing can be classified to material removing technologies. These two established groups have been developed for a long time compared to the more recent material additive (Rapid Prototyping) manufacturing technology group. (Tuomi, J. 2003)
2 APPLICATION ORIENTED CLASSIFICATION OF RAPID PROTOTYPING IN MECHANICAL ENGINEERING
Since the beginning of RP technology history most parts built using these technologies have been used in prototyping and in conceptual design studies in the early phases of product development. During the last 20 years a wide spectrum of different technologies and applications has been introduced and some of them have already disappeared. The general trend is, that RM today covers wide range of applications in many phases of business.
