The past few years have delivered a great deal of development in the area of Layered Manufacturing. The challenge is to apply the existing technologies to existing and/or new manufacturing systems, thereby adding value to these systems. The advances in the field of Layered Manufacturing range from the process of slicing to the actual building process. The main achievements in the arena of slicing have been in the advances of Adaptive Slicing. By not using a uniform slice thickness, not only is the stair stepping effect minimized, but the build time is also shortened. Many advances have been made in terms of the actual materials used and the process of building, thereby expanding the range of uses for the technology as a whole. With the extension in the variety of materials available for use with the technology, new uses become more than mere possibility and actually become viable. The use of Layered Manufacturing in the case of the CSIR was not the focus of the original experiment, but was a method to test the results of their main experiments – namely, research into the properties of ceramic materials and their use in the realm of medicine. The research of the CSIR focuses on the use of ceramic materials for the purpose of bone implants, which is a problem area in medicine. The machine they built in order to test the properties of the new materials they invent, uses Layered Manufacturing as a building process. What the CSIR lacks are the backend systems to enable the building of more complex experimental parts, as they have no way of going from design to a full build. This research project focuses on proving that the technologies involved in Layered Manufacturing will add value to the CSIR’s research. By implementing a system that takes advantage of existing software, and by using custom software to make it applicable to the environment the CSIR is currently operating in, their research could be speeded up tremendously without putting too much strain on their budget. What has been achieved is a simple system which employs the use of available technologies and software packages, and which requires no changes to the hardware of the current process used, such as the Rapid Prototyping machine. / Ehlers, E.M., Prof.

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 98-103).

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The automated fabrication of a prototype three-dimensional part from a three-dimensional drawing can be regarded as rapid prototyping. There are two basic types of rapid prototyping: subtractive fabrication and additive fabrication. Subtractive fabrication begins with a block of material that is larger than the object to be created and “sculpts” the block into the required prototype three-dimensional part. Additive fabrication continuously adds particles to an object until the desired object is created. Often this process builds a prototype three-dimensional part layer by layer. The prototype three-dimensional parts are created by particular rapid prototyping hardware. Telemanufacturing allows for the remote submission of three-dimensional drawings via a communication medium to the site where the rapid prototyping machine resides. The communication medium for the purposes of this dissertation is the Internet. After the three-dimensional drawing is submitted to the remote site, the rapid prototyping machine proceeds to create the prototype three-dimensional part. The aim of this research is to integrate a visual feedback system into the telemanufacturing environment. The visual feedback system allows a user at a remote location to view the progress of the manufacture of the prototype three-dimensional part in real time. This research also aims to integrate a software agent into the telemanufacturing environment. An agent is loosely defined as “one that acts for another”. The software agent discussed in this dissertation will analyze visual data obtained from the rapid prototyping environment, determine if the prototype three-dimensional part being created contains errors, and take the necessary action. The ultimate goal of this dissertation is to allow the visual analysis of a part as a rapid prototyping machine is creating it. This research allows for two approaches to this “visual analysis”: human analysis, and analysis by a software agent. The “visual analysis” will detect any errors that have occurred during the manufacturing process and ultimately result in the reduction of time and resources to create prototype three dimensional parts using telemanufacturing. / Prof. E.M. Ehlers

Through the use of rapid prototyping it is possible to move directly from a computer design to a nal physical product without human intervention. Telemanufacturing is an extension to rapid prototyping that presents a data communications based interface to rapid prototyping. Resource negotiating agents are able to provide a completely autonomous negotiation process. By integrating resource negotiating agents into a telemanufacturing environment, an opportunity for a completely automated supply chain is presented. / Prof. E.M. Ehlers

Thesis (Master').