Layered manufacturing of surfaces with open contours using localized wall thickening

Sheet surfaces are commonly used in design to represent thin-walled surface s. A method of manufacturing these surfaces via layered manufacturing (LM) using local wall thickening is presented. By considering the accuracy of on ly one side of the surface important, the need for support structured can b e removed by thickened regions on the unimportant side. This preserves the accuracy of the accurate side while reducing the total material used and bu ild time during manufacture. A method of selecting an orientation to maximi ze the accuracy of the important side while minimizing the amount of wall t hickening is presented. Also, algorithms for locally thickening the surface and generating slices for manufacturing on a LM machine are developed. Fin ally, several examples are manufactured using the proposed method to compar e material and build time savings over conventional support methods. (C) 20 00 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.