SLA를 이용한 신속 시작작업에서 최적 성형방향의 결정

Determination of Optimal Build-up Direction for Stereolithographic Rapid Prototyping

Stereolithography is a process used to rapidly produce polymer components directly form a computer representation of the part. There are several considerations to be made for the efficient use of the process. Especially, the build-up orientation of part critically affects the part accuracy, total build time and the volume of support structures. The purpose of tis study is to determine the optimal build-up part orientation for the SLA process with improving part accuracy, and minimizing total build time and the volume of support structures. The forst factor is related to the area of surfaces whioch have staircase protrusions after solidification, the second factor is related to the total number of layers, and the third factor is related to the area of the surfaces which need to be supported with support structures. An algorithm is developed to calculate the staircase area, quantifying the process errors by the volume of materials supposed to be removed or added to the part, and the optimal layer thickness for the SLA system which can handle the variable layer thickness. So the optima l part orientation is determined based on the user's selections of primary criter- ion and the optimal thickness of layers is calculated at any part orientations.