Rapid Prototyping of EPS Pattern for Complicated Casting

In Rapid Prototyping (RP) process the 3D object is approximated into several 2D slices. All these slices are of a uniform thickness hence called uniform slicing of zeroth order approximation. Such a system always suffers with the staircase defects. Very thin slices have to be used to minimize these defects, which increase the production time. In this work, a RP system called Segmented Object Manufacturing (SOM) is used to produce the Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) pattern, which uses adaptive slicing with higher order approximation. This system uses the concept of visible slicing in which a complicated object is produced by converting it into the accessible (visible) segments. This is a hybrid system for producing EPS patterns which utilizes the advantages from subtractive and additive processes. These EPS patterns found their application in Evaporative Pattern Casting (EPC). EPS bracket is produced by SOM machine to prove the capability of the system.