Rapidpre: A New Additive Manufacturing Technique Based on Reaction Injection Moulding (Report‪)‬

1.INTRODUCTION In 1989 the additive extrusion technique, known as Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM), formed the base technology of the Stratasys Company. By this process, thin thermoplastic filaments are melted by heating and guided by a robotic device (extruder), controlled by a computer, to form three-dimensional objects. The material leaves the extruder in a liquid form and hardens almost immediately. The previously formed layer, which is the substrate for the next layer, must be maintained at a temperature just below the solidification point of the thermoplastic material, to assure good interlayer adhesion (Crump et al 1994).