Preface:
In history,
mankind always wanted to manufacture parts that he imagined. In the
long way of reaching this goal, huge number of technologies was developed
to solve various manufacturing problems. In today's world, in parallel
to requirements of more complicated products, the need for more advanced
manufacturing technologies are rapidly increasing.
This
report briefly unveils autofabrication technologies which is one
of the latest advancements in today's manufacturing technology since
1990. Today, although these technologies mostly used for rapid prototyping
(RP) and rapid tooling (RT) applications in rapid new product development
process chain, the name, RP was not enough to cover wide scope of
this technology. So, the title of the report is given considering
many more current and futuristic applications of the technology
including 'direct manufacturing of complex, multi-material, multi-coloured
functional parts and assemblies'
This
report was originally written in Turkish and updated since 1997;
www.TurkCADCAM.net/rapor/otoinsa
With the encouragement and aid of Ed Grenda
/ Castle Island Co. the English version has been developed. The
report currently contains 65 different fabrication technologies
developed by 57 companies/ organizations from 11 countries. With more
than 500 explanatory images, the report categorizes all autofabrication
technologies under 4 main and 8 sub classes.
In addition to this various applications of these new technologies are given. The report contains a special
page for autofabrication technology applications
in Turkey.
At
the end of the report basic technologies and processes related with
the topic of this report has been explained.
The
report has a unique point of view in introducing the autofab technology:
The report starts explanation from a very common base that is known
by everyone; fabrication of a human body (including your eyes that
see these words) based on data stored in DNA molecule... So, by
reading this report, even a person who has no engineering or manufacturing
background can easily be introduced in the field.
Note
that this report covers only commercialized technologies. Much more
information related with alternative autofab technologies; university
research, R&D projects, papers, patents etc. can be found from
the resources and references given
at the end of this report.
I
hope the report will be effective in explaining the autofabrication
technology. Please share your comments and suggestions with me.
Erkut
Neğiş
erkut@TurkCADCAM.net |
