Machine Element Reconstruction Using Integrated Reverse Engineering and Rapid Prototyping Approach

The modern manufacturing industries are characterized by a wide spread use of remanufactured products. Thus there is a need of hour to fabricate an object by integrating the reverse engineering and rapid prototyping approach to facilitate the re-manufacturing process. This integrated approach might be reducing considerable product makeup time. Existing all integrated reverse engineering and rapid prototyping methodology are begin with the digitizing of an entire object surfaces. Reverse engineering technology enables to create CAD models of existing objects by capturing their surface data and rapid prototyping is another emerging technology that allows to promptly fabricating the physical prototype of a product using an adaptive manufacturing technique. In this research, a method that creates a direct link between reverse engineering and rapid prototype technologies to fabricate the physical model of scanned object has been proposed. Spur gear has been selected for the present work because of owing to its complex geometry and it is considered to be an imperative element in mechanical industries to transmit power between two parallel shafts. In the present work a spur gear is scanned to re-generate its CAD model. The scanned recreated model in STL format is fabricated by rapid prototyping approach using Object30-Pro machine. Finally, the original and fabricated models are use to compared for its critical geometrical dimensions and tolerances. The spur gear example gives an insight of how integrated approach can cater the requirements of industries especially the automotive sector.