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Feasibility study of a new rapid tooling process

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Abstract

The requirements for faster product development cycles, lower product cost and environmental sustainability are ever increasing in today’s globally competitive market. Tooling is a very important phase in the product manufacturing cycle. To overcome the shortcomings of long lead-time and high cost associated with conventional tooling processes, new tooling methods with shorter lead-time and lower cost are strongly under demand.

In this study, the feasibility of the proposed new rapid tooling process based on back support of a metal shell with packed metal powders is examined. First, the effect of metal powder properties, such as powder shape, size, and size distributions, on powder-packing behaviour is investigated experimentally. Then, the compressive behaviours of the metal shell and the shell-powder assembly are analysed numerically with different compressive loading. The study indicates that the proposed new rapid tooling method can potentially be used for injection moulding applications.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. SteelCraft Industries Limited, Festival City Fabricators, Stratford, Ontario, Canada, N5A 6T3

    Xiaoping Jiang

  2. National Research Council Canada, Integrated Manufacturing Technologies Institute, London, Ontario, Canada, N6G 4X8

    Xingyang Liu

  3. Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, N6A 5B9, Canada

    Chao Zhang

Authors
  1. Xiaoping Jiang
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  2. Xingyang Liu
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  3. Chao Zhang
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Chao Zhang.

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Jiang, X., Liu, X. & Zhang, C. Feasibility study of a new rapid tooling process. Int J Adv Manuf Technol 27, 296–304 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-004-2191-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-004-2191-7

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