Ford Motor Co. is raising the stakes in rapid prototyping,
making testable prototype metal parts ranging from brake rotors
to transmission cases with three-dimensional (3D) printers.
Using technologies such as selective laser sintering,
stereolithography, and 3D sandcasting, Ford engineers say
they're able to build metal parts with the same material
characteristics as those that are injection molded, and then
employ them as "surrogate" parts in test vehicles prior to
production. Doing so enables them to eliminate the time-
consuming step of building an injection molding tool, thus
cutting weeks from the process. "With these technologies, we
just build a part directly from a CAD file," Harold Sears, rapid
manufacturing technology specialist for Ford, told Design News.
"There's no tooling needed." Ford engineers send CAD files
between facilities, then build prototypes at workstations using
MakerBot Thing-O-Matic 3D printers. (Source: Ford Motor Co.) To
be sure, manufacturers have used rapid prototyping technique