Surface Quality
The objective of this WP is to develop strategies and technologies to finish the part according to the end-user requirements. Generally, all current “rapid technologies” suffer from poor surface quality and need post treatment in order to meet the geometric or cosmetic requirements. Disadvantages of this include high costs and uncontrolled end quality. All this has to be avoided especially when moving from Rapid Prototyping to Rapid Manufacturing, which is aiming at producing series of parts. The following will be developed for specifically the geometric requirements:
- Efficient and automated strategies to remove support and overhanging structures.
- Surface texturing, camouflaging the typical stair-stepping; adding new surface geometry, cosmetic as well as functional (e.g. a larger cooling surface can be achieved in channels), see picture.
- Automatic post machining: machining data will be retrieved from the CAD file about surfaces, for which dimensional accuracy or surface roughness require post machining
- Mechanical and chemical ways to finish internal channels and (porous) structures