• Transactions of the Korean Society of Machine Tool Engineers
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.48-54
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• 2007

Surface of rapid prototype has inevitably stair-stepping error, which is attributed to the continuous building process of 2 dimensional area. In this study, rounded edge model was established to estimate the roughness of inclined surface which has stair-stepping error. To investigate the roughness of rapid prototypes, specimens that have various surface inclinations were manufactured by various types of RP machines. As the surface inclination increased, the roughness of the specimens manufactured by SL, FDM, or LOM process decreased, which coincides with the simulation results. However, surface roughness of 3DP specimen was almost independent of the inclination. Furthermore, as the angle of surface increased, roughness of poly-jet specimen also increased, which is attributed to the frictional behavior between writing head and scanned area.