Shape deposition manufacturing with microcasting

Abstract: "This paper provides a brief overview of an emerging application for solid freeform fabrication known as Shape Deposition Manufacturing (SDM) with Microcasting. The SDM microcasting process has been used to manufacture complex geometric shapes from CAD models. This novel manufacturing process is briefly described, and a sample artifact is shown. Our current research is described, involving the thermal behavior of the process, the bonding of deposited layers, and droplet fluid dynamics. We have gained significant understanding of the relationship between process parameters and the final quality of artifacts created by microcasting, and continue to investigate the effect of process parameters to develop a systematic representation of the parameter design space; current efforts are directed towards improving the numerical simulations to more accurately predict and control the microcasting process."