Thermal analysis of layer formation in a stepless rapid prototyping process

This paper presents a thermal analysis of forming the top layer of a five-layer part made using a stepless rapid prototyping process, which cures successive layers of liquid polymer through exposure to UV light. A computer model is created to simulate the kinetics of the UV light induced photo-polymerization; the heat transfer in the curing stage and the process after UV curing have been established. A temperature profile in the UV curing was obtained through the simulation. It was found that temperature in the top layer rose very rapidly upon exposure to the UV radiation, and reached the maximum point near 100 °C at the end of curing. After the UV lamp was turned off, the layer temperature dropped quickly to room temperature due to convection. An in situ 2D thermal imaging experiment was conducted to verify the simulation results. It showed that the modeling agreed well with the experimental results.