A Survey of the State of Art in Thick Layered Manufacturing of Large Objects and the Presentation of a Newly Developed System

Large sized freeform objects of soft materials are widely used in various applications. Current layered rapid prototyping technologies cannot be applied for the fabrication of this kind of objects due to the number of layers and the limitations in size. This paper presents a novel approach of layered manufacturing that is most appropriate for the fabrication of these objects. A short overview is presented in the state of the art in thick layered Rapid Prototyping (RP). The prototypes delivered by these RP systems have often restricted functionality. In this paper a novel Layer Manufacturing system is proposed, based on thick layer manufacturing and the application of a flexible curved tool. The final prototype is assembled from the produced layers, and due to higher order approximation of the CAD-model geometry, needs no or less finishing.