Scheduling and process planning for multiple material stereolithography

Purpose – To operate a multiple material stereolithography (MMSL) system, a material build schedule is required. The purpose of this paper is to describe a scheduling and process‐planning software system developed for MMSL and designed to minimize the number of material changeovers by using low‐viscosity resins that do not require sweeping.Design/methodology/approach – This paper employs the concept of using low‐viscosity resins that do not require sweeping to minimize the number of material changeovers required in MMSL fabrication. A scheduling and process‐planning software system specific to MMSL is introduced that implements four simple rules. Two rules are used to select the material to be built in the current layer, and two rules are used to determine at which layer a material changeover is required. The schedule for the material to be built depends on the material properties stored in a user‐defined materials library. The developed algorithm produces sliced loop data for each material using the pred...

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