Dr Sushant Negi, MED-NITS 22-04-2020

Rapid Prototype Uses

Rapid Tooling  Concept Models

 Prototypes
 Functional Prototypes
 Rapid Tooling
 Limited Production Manufacturing
 Rapid Manufacturing

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Rapid Tooling

The term Rapid Tooling (RT) is typically used to describe a process:

Which either uses a Rapid Prototyping (RP) model as a pattern to create a

mold quickly.

Or

It uses the Rapid Prototyping process directly to fabricate a tool for a

limited volume of prototypes.

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Tool sample
Same principles and characteristics as for Rapid Prototyping:

– Layer-by-layer build up of molds and dies (direct RT)

– Shaping of molds and dies from RP-made master patterns
(indirect RT)
Rapid Tooling (RT)
Which uses an RP model as:
1. A pattern to create mold quickly (e.g. sand casting),
2. Copy an RP form into a metal (e.g. investment casting), and
3. Uses the RP process directly to fabricate a limited volume of
tools.

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Dr Sushant Negi, MED-NITS 22-04-2020

Advantages of RT Classification of RT Routes

• Tooling time is much shorter than for a conventional tool (time to first articles is Rapid tooling techniques have been classified in various ways:
below one-fifth that of conventional tooling)
• Prototype/bridge/production,
• Tooling cost is much less than for a conventional tool (Cost can be below five • Soft/bridge/hard tooling;
percent of conventional tooling cost)
• Direct/non direct

• Tool life is considerably less than for a conventional tool.

• Tolerances are wider than for a conventional tool .

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Soft tooling (Bridge) Hard tooling

Rapid Tooling (RT)

• Silicon rubber, epoxy resins, low

melting point alloys and foundry sands • Tool steels

Hard tooling • To fill the gap between soft

Soft tooling
tooling and production tooling.
• Used for only single casts or for small
batch production runs
• Used for Longer production runs
(20-500 parts).

Direct Soft Tooling Direct Hard Tooling

Indirect Soft Tooling Indirect Hard Tooling Direct tooling: When the tool or die is created directly by the RP process.

indirect tooling: Only the master pattern is created using the RP process. A mold, made
of silicon rubber, epoxy resin, low melting point metal, or ceramic, is then created from
the master pattern.
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Indirect RT Direct RT

Indirect methods for Soft and Bridge tooling

• Room Temperature Vulcanization (RTV)-Silicone Rubber Molding (SRM) Direct RT methods for Soft and Bridge tooling:
• Composite aluminum-filled epoxy (CAFE)
• Spray Metal Tooling • Direct ACES Injection Moldiing (Direct AIM)
• NCC tooling • Copper polyamide Tooling
• Investment Cast tooling • Direct metal laser sintering
• Rapid tool (production tooling)
Indirect methods for production tooling • Laminated tooling
• 3D Keltool • Laser engineered net shaping
• Polysteel • Prometal
• Ecotool
• Expert tool

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Indirect methods for Soft tooling

RTV Silicone Rubber Molding Process (RTV SRM) Process:

Process principle STEP 1: An RP pattern is used to create a master male pattern as shown below. The RP
Casting of a (RP)-master pattern in silicon and reproduction technique most often used is the SLA process.

Characteristics:

RTV SRM • It is vey fast

• It is possible to produce first part from CAD file in just five
days
• Less expansive than CNC machined aluminum tooling
• Silicon mold can be used several times
• Suited for small lots <50

STEP 2: The SLA part is made slightly larger (e.g. 0.003 in/in) than the final product since
this is what shrinkage the final part will see.

STEP 3: The SLA part is sanded to a suitable cosmetic finish and can be sealed.

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Housing for drilling machine

STEP 4: The master pattern is fitted with a sprue and gate and then surrounded by a STEP 5: The assembly is fixtured in a vat, and liquid RTV is then poured over the
parting surface which establishes the parting line for the mold (see the illustration). pattern and parting surface combination as shown below.
Alternatively, the cured mold can be cut carefully to form the parting line.

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STEP 7: Thermoset resin such as urethane is poured or injected into the mold, as
shown below.
STEP 6: Once cured, the RTV is removed from the vat and separated from the pattern
and parting line surface to yield the two halves of the molding tool.

RTV air-cures, so that the cure time depends on the geometry, the RTV type, and
the environment. Cure time can range from .5 to 40 hours. Aging of the mold after
cure for up to three days can improve mold life.

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STEP 8: Finally, the finished part is removed from the mold. Undercuts are overcome STEP 9: The part must then be post-processed by trimming any flash, as shown below,
by distorting the mold, which springs back to its original shape as long as distortion and possibly sanding. The gate and sprue must also be removed.
is not too severe.

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Investment casting

• RP patterns are direct replacements for traditional patterns that are

injection molded with foundry wax. One significant difference is that FDM
material does not melt like wax. It burns, which leaves a small amount of
ash, typically 0.021 percent, in the shell cavity. The ash is later removed in
a shell washing operation. Venting should be added to the ceramic shells
to speed the burnout of the FDM pattern. Investment casting patterns
need to be produced to close tolerances and with an excellent surface
finish because any defects are reproduced in the finished part. The
Stratasys Finishing Touch Smoothing Station uses a semi-automated
process to improve the surface finish of FDM parts to near injection
molded quality without the labor or cost associated with traditional
finishing. Advancements in finishing technology have improved FDM parts
to the point that hand finishing is no longer needed, making FDM a much
stronger competitor in the investment casting market.

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Vacuum casting with silicon molding (through diagrams)

• Plastic parts are vacuum cast by placing a silicone tool in a vacuum chamber with a
polyurethane resin. The two-part resin is mixed and de-gassed before being poured
into the silicone cavity. After pouring, the vacuum is released and the tool is
removed to a post-curing oven for up to two hours depending on tool size.
Following an exothermic reaction of the two-part resin, the cavity is opened and a
polyurethane part removed. The silicone cavity is then closed and the process
repeated

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Vacuum casting with silicon molding (through diagrams) Arc Spray Metal Tooling

Metal spraying is used for the production of soft tooling.

Using metal spraying on the RP model, it is possible to create very quickly an

injection mold that can be used to mold a limited number of prototype parts.

The metal spraying (lead/tin based) process is operated manually, with a hand-
held gun. An electric arc is introduced between two wires, which melts the wires
into tiny droplets.

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Dr Sushant Negi, MED-NITS 22-04-2020

Indirect methods for production tooling

Process principle
• Duplicate molding of SL master patterns by
longtime-low temp sintering.

Arc Spray Metal

Material
Tooling
Rapid Tooling: Keltool • Tool steel/Wolfram carbide mixture infiltrated
with copper

Characteristics
• Very high hardness, stiffness and surface quality
• Process chain takes two weeks

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Production Time:
1
The process develops like this:
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3 • 1-2 Days: Working prototype

• 1-2 Days: Development of core and cavity inserts.

2 4 • 2 weeks: A6 tool steel mold inserts.

Process chain of Keltool™-process:
• 2-3 days: molded plastic parts in a specific resin.
1. Starts with a Master pattern produced by SL, then Master is polished & finished.

2.Silicon casting (it leaves behind the negative pattern corresponding to master) Tool Life Expectancies:
100,000 to 10,000,000 shots depending on material.
3.Casting with a tool steel/Wolframcarbide/ epoxy mixture

4.Insert is taken out and, Burn-out of binder, sintering and infiltration with copper in
an oven

5.Tool insert (70% A6 steel & 30% copper) ready for production 33 34

Direct methods for Soft and Bridge tooling

Direct ACES Injection Molding
Keltool is capable of producing tool inserts with tolerances of the order
50µm that can be delivered in 8 to 10 days.

• A rapid tooling method developed by 3D CAD/CAM systems uses the SLA to

produce resin molds that allow the direct injection of thermoplastic materials.
Known as the Direct AIM : ACES (accurate, clear epoxy solid) injection molding.
Some other processes are:
• The mold is similar to a regular part SLA but is the negative image and cut into two
•Polysteel halves.
•Ecotool
•Expert tool

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Dr Sushant Negi, MED-NITS 22-04-2020

Direct methods for Soft and Bridge tooling

Direct ACES Injection Molding Process:
ACES stands for "Accurate Clear Epoxy Solid," which is a stereolithography build style
1. The process involves growing the mold on a SLA system, using the ACES build style,
that is shelled out on the bottom side.
Method is called direct as core or cavity inserts of a 2. This leaves a cavity in the mold halves that can be backfilled with various
plastic injection mold are directly built on SLA machine. materials.
3. These material include aluminum-filled epoxy, ceramics, and low-melting metals.
Production Time: halves.
Direct ACES A Direct AIM mold can typically be grown and processed
in 1 to 2 weeks.

Tool Life Expectancies:

Less than 100 parts. Life of the tool is a function of the
thermoplastic material and part complexity.

Accuracy
Tolerances of between 0.005-0.015 inches can be
achieved.

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Copper Polyamide Tooling

Direct Metal Laser Sintering
• The Copper Polyamide tooling process from DTM (Austin, Texas) involves the
• Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS) from EOS involves the direct processing of selective laser sintering of a copper and polyamide powder matrix to form a tool.
metal powders in a laser sintering machine. Typically, the machine is used for the All of the sintering is between the polyamide powder particles.
production of tool inserts, but it also is possible to produce metal components.
Two materials are available for the DMLS process: • The process boasts an increase in tool toughness and heat transfer over some of
the other soft tooling methods. These characteristics are provided by the copper
• 1) bronze-based materials, which are used for injection molding of up to 1,000 and can give the user the benefits of running a tool with pressure and temperature
parts in a variety of materials, and 2) steel-based material, which is useful for up to settings that are closer to production settings. The primary disadvantage is the low
100,000 plastic injection molded parts. material strength.

• DMLS offers good feature definition, although the surface definition of the steel-
based powder needs improving. Also, the steel material builds slowly.

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SLS RapidSteel
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• In the same way that a cavity can be generated directly by stereolithography, it also is
possible to build tool cavities directly using the laser sintering process. With DTM's
RapidSteel (also referred to as RapidTool), digital models of the core and cavity geometries
are created and sent to a Sinterstation machine for fabrication in RapidSteel powder. This Tool insert
material consists of particles of mild stainless steel that are coated with a thin layer of a 2
polymer binder material.
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• The Sinterstation produces green parts that are then fired in a furnace. The furnace removes
the polymer binder and infiltrates bronze into the mold inserts through capillary action. Process:
• This process produces a fully dense tool that consists of about 60 percent steel and 40
percent bronze. The inserts are then finished, drilled for ejector pins, and fit to a mold base.
1. SLS of metal powder (directly)
• The process produces a durable mold that can be used for injection-mold tooling, as well as 2. Bronze nickel powder: infiltration with copper Steel: not necessarily required
die-casting applications. However, RapidSteel requires finish machining and polishing that can
be time consuming 3. Polishing and insertion into tool frame

• The advantages are speed, good tool strength and its use for injection molding and die-
casting. Disadvantages are equipment cost and size limitations.

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Dr Sushant Negi, MED-NITS 22-04-2020

LENS
Laminated Tooling
• Like other RP techniques, LENS is an additive fabrication method – although it produces fully
• To produce a mold tool, the CAD model must take the form of the required cavity. By cutting dense metal parts. To date, parts have been fabricated in 316 and 304 stainless steel, in
all of the slices of the cavity in sheet metal, a stack of laminates can be made to replicate the nickel-based super-alloys such as Inconel 625, 690 and 718, H13 tool steel, tungsten, Ti-6Al-
original CAD model.. Due to the use of relatively thick laminates – typically 0.040 inch (1 mm) 4V titanium alloy and nickel aluminides.
– the surface finish of the tools is generally poor; therefore, some form of finish machining is
generally required. • The primary advantage is 100 percent dense parts. The disadvantages are poor surface finish
and small feature definition.
• Laminated tools have been used successfully for a variety of techniques including press tools,
blow molding, injection molding and thermal forming. Research also is being performed into
the use of laminate tools in pressure die-casting.

• One significant advantage of laminated tooling is the ability to change the design of parts
quickly by the replacement of laminates (if un-bonded). The need for finish machining to
remove the stair steps is the main disadvantage of this process

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Summary Rapid Manufacturing

Many rapid tooling methods are available. Most of them require a master pattern,
although a growing number offer a direct path to fabricating the tooling.
 Use of RT-technologies for end product production
In the short term, indirect methods of RT will continue to flourish because these  Small series production (racing, aerospace, executive/special products, ...)
methods are the most developed.
 Mass Customization
However, in the long term companies will lean toward direct methods of tooling
because they eliminate a step – the use of a pattern – that can help reduce the time it
takes to produce the tooling and improve the accuracy of the process

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