Rapid Prototyping

Rapid Prototyping is an innovative technology which makes possible in a few hours the production of complex objects directly starting from the mathematical model realized with a three-dimensional CAD system.
After the first prototyping system, appeared in 1988, more than twenty different systems, each one characterized by small differences from the others, have been developed.
At the beginning these systems have found their applications in automotive and aereospatial industries and later on in many other areas such as toys, computers, jewels, medicinal field and so on.
It is possible to classify these prototyping techniques considering the different kind of material employed tha can be found either solid state or in liquid state.
The processes employing liquid material can be further classified into two categories:

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Other processes employ particles and the union between the grains is guaranteed by the fusion of the particles along their contact area or by adding a specific kind of glue.
Finally, some methodologies start with the solid material which is shaped in thin layers which are glued one on the top of the other and subsequently cut to obtain the desired shape.