Adaptive crosshatch approach for the laminated object manufacturing (LOM) process

The waste material removal process of laminated object manufacturing (LOM), so-called 'decubing', is a labour-intensive and time-consuming work result ing from the commonly used uniform crosshatch setting. An adaptive crosshat ch approach to improve working efficiency and alleviate the effort involved in the decubing process is developed. The working region is divided into t wo portions, the inner region and the outer region, by the proposed rectang le and original contour offset approaches. The fine crosshatch pattern is d esignated to the inner region based on the shape of the cross-section conto ur, and the rules to select crosshatches for different shapes are given. Th e outer region has a coarse crosshatch pattern, and it is an integer multip le of that of the inner region. The brick-layered effect in the overlap zon e of the waste material is eliminated by the projection method. Experiments show that with the adaptive crosshatch approach there are four major advan tages: saving laser power consumption, protecting the part from damage, imp roving machining efficiency and easier decubing.