>Ian gibson inquired:
>I know that ceramics has been a hot (cool?) topic in the RP research
>community for quite a while now. I am also aware of the use of ceramics to
>make casting shells. Can anyone tell me whether there has been any
>commercial success recently? Someone told me they heard about a process
>called CerLOM for instance. Can anyone tell me more?"
CerLOM is a Lone Peak Engineering trademark that we use to describe the
ceramic processing work that we do on the Laminated Object Manufacturing
System. We also use the trademarks CerLAM and MetLAM when discussing the
ceramic and metal tapes that we produce for laminating RP systems, whether
the system is the LOM or a variation thereof.
Using our CerLOM process, we have produced cores for investment cast
directly from .STL files in an alumina material. This work has not been
publicized by us because it has been done for industrial clients - not
goverment or university sponsored research programs and there are
confidentiality issues. Although, if you are interested in the
possibilities of a consortia in this area, I suggest that you contact Floyd
Roberts at NASA, as there has been strong interest in putting together a
broad-based government/industry effort in this area.
As a service bureau, Lone Peak routinely produces ceramic prototypes in:
alumina, zirconia, aluminum nitride, and barium titinate using our LOM. In
fact, we haven't run a paper LOM part in the last year because our machine
is pretty well booked with ceramic protoype work.
In addition to the structural ceramic prototypes, we have also produced a
variety of porous ceramic protoypes, such as ceramic filters using the
LOM. So, while I can't answer whether or not ceramics is a hot or cold
topic, at least for us, ceramic RP is a commercial success.
On the development side, we produce custom ceramic and metal tapes for the
LOM out of customer supplied powders. On the research side, we have worked
with Universities, large corporations, and a few of the national labs on
joint RP materials development projects. For more information in these
areas, I suggest that you contact Bill Coblenz,/DARPA, Steve Fishman/ONR,
Floyd Roberts / NASA, Dick Chartoff/U of Dayton, and Bill Ellingson /
Argonne National Lab.
Our work is not limited to the LOM machine (although I think that probably
is what we are best known for). We have done quite a bit of materials
development work for the FDM and SLS systems along with injection molding
of ceramics and metals, and rapid patterns for ceramic slip casting. We
also have been involved heavily in the software side as it applies to
streamlining either RP or injection molding for materials like ceramics and
metals.
Hope this wasn't too wordy. Thanks for your interest.
Alair Griffin / Engineer
Lone Peak Engineeing, Inc.
alair@lonepeak.com
Lone Peak Engineering, Inc.
12660 S. Fort St.
Draper, UT 84020
801-553-1732 TEL
801-553-1734 FAX
lpe@lonepeak.com
http://www.aros.net/~lonepeak/lpe
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