Development of Variable Deposition Manufacturing for Ethylene Vinyl Acetatecopolymer

EVA를 이용한 가변 용착 쾌속 조형 공정 개발

RP techniques have inherent disadvantages caused by their working principles: stair-stepped surface of parts due to layer-by-layer stacking of layers, low build speed caused by line-by-line solidification to finish one layer, and post processing to improve surface finish, etc. The objective of this study is to propose a new RP technique, variable deposition manufacturing (VDM), which can make up for the disadvantages of the existing RP techniques, and to develop an apparatus to implement the technique. The proposed process can greatly reduce the building time and improve the surface finish of parts generated. The experiments are carried out to obtain the range of temperature of molten material to maintain its fluidity and to investigate the effect of gas cooling on the preservation of the slopes. Based on the results, some simple shapes such as a line-shape. an S-shape, and a circle-shape were fabricated from Ethylene Vinyl Acetatecopolymer (EVA). In order to examine the applicability of VDM to more general shapes, a tensile specimen and a yo-yo shape were manufactured by the proposed RP method using EVA material as the first trial approach. The present basic study has shown the possibility of a practicable utilization of the proposed VDM process to prototyping of a general three-dimensional shape.