Rapid Prototyping and Manufacturing

About this course:

MAE C297A Rapid Prototyping and Manufacturing (Instructor: Prof. Li, X.) Lecture, four hours; laboratory, two hours; outside study, six hours. Recommended requisite: level of knowledge in manufacturing equivalent to course 183A and CAD capability. Rapid prototyping (RP), solid freeform fabrication, or additive manufacturing has emerged as popular manufacturing technology to accelerate product creation in last two decades. Machine for layered manufacturing builds parts directly from CAD models. This novel manufacturing technology enables building of parts that have traditionally been impossible to fabricate because of their complex shapes or of variety in materials. In analogy to speed and flexibility of desktop publishing, rapid prototyping is also called desktop manufacturing, with actual three-dimensional solid objects instead of mere two-dimensional images. Methodology of rapid prototyping has also been extended into meso-/micro-/nano-scale to produce three-dimensional functional miniature components. Concurrently scheduled with course C183C. Letter grading.