Benchmarking of Rapid Prototyping Systems - Beginning to Set Standards

Many rapid prototyping (RP) technologies are available today and more are being developed around the world. The absence of benchmarking standards in the RP industry has led manufacturers to use their own standards and make claims about superior performance. The need for testing standards is already felt; standardization will become imperative in the near future. The present work aims to lay the groundwork for the development of standards to measure various performance factors. Issues such as appearance and finish are studied qualitatively; the test part and some findings are presented. Issues such as repeatability, warpage, curl, creep, shrinkage and tensile strength are proposed to be studied quantitatively; test parts designed for studying these are described. Benchmarking standards will help users choose proper systems for their applications and help operators in monitoring machine performance, enabling better control over part building.Mechanical Engineerin