The difference and application of silicone mold, resin mold and steel mould

According to the mold material, the production cost, the RP prototype material, the production batch, the mold precision request has developed many kinds of technical method. At present, the method of rapid tooling is generally based on the indirect method and direct method, and the method of rapid tooling based on RP is more indirect. According to the different material, indirect of die mold production out of the soft mode, bridge mode and hard mode, generally is refers to the silicone mold, resin mold and mold steel.

Soft mode (tooling soft) is generally refers to the silicone rubber mold. With SLA, FDM, LOM or SLS technology, such as the production of the prototype, and then turned into a silicone rubber mold, the two parts of the mold after the infusion of polyurethane, curing, that is, to get the required parts. Bridge mode (tooling bridge) is generally referred to as the direct injection molding of epoxy resin mold. Compared with the traditional injection mold with epoxy resin, the cost is only a fraction of the traditional method, and the production cycle is greatly reduced. Die life than steel, but higher than the silica gel, up to 5000 ~ 1000, to meet the needs of small and medium volume production. Die hard tooling) usually refers to is a steel mould, namely indirect manufacturing metal mold and using rapid prototyping direct machining of metal mold.

Rapid prototyping technology (RP)

Rapid prototype technology (Prototyping Rapid, referred to as RP) was born in 1988 in the United States, quickly expanded to Europe and Japan, and the introduction of China in the early 90s. By using the idea of material accumulation is in the rapid prototyping (RP), rapid manufacturing of prototypes of the new integrated technology, has been widely used in almost all industries of machinery, automobiles, electrical appliances, aerospace, military and other, pioneered the mould fast manufacture of new era, prior to the development of the broad prospect.

The traditional machining is constantly remove blank of surplus materials and parts, and RP technology is using material accumulated manufacturing thought based on the three-dimensional as numerous parallel with the superposition of different shape of level, can rapid manufacturing crystal prototype production.

With the further integration of the global economy, the competition in manufacturing industry is becoming more and more fierce. How to shorten the production cycle and reduce the cost, has become the primary consideration of the manufacturing industry. To improve the development speed of the product and the degree of flexibility of production as a common goal.

At present, China's automobile, home appliances, electronics / communications, light industry and many other industries of the development of new products more and more can not be separated from the rapid tooling technology. For the development of the technology in China, our long-term goal is developed an original short process, high precision, fast molding new materials and new technology, to form China's independent intellectual property rights of rapid molding core technology. The priority is to increase the large and medium-sized, complex shape, durability, high precision metal mold rapid and low cost of manufacturing new processes and new materials development efforts.