CAD and Rapid Prototyping for Product Design PDF by Douglas Bryden

CONTENTS

The impact of CAD and rapid prototyping
Computing technologies enable us to explore and define the world around us in an ever increasing number of ways, helping scientists, engineers, architects and designers to solve complex problems and define future directions for the man-made world in which we live. Product design involves an iterative process of research, analysis, thinking, conceptualizing, visualizing, model making, prototyping, testing and refining. As computing technologies evolve, they continue to influence this process. Computer-aided design (CAD) is a form of digital prototyping used within this product development process. Rapid prototyping (RP) refers to a set of computer-controlled machine processes used for prototyping and manufacturing parts from CAD files. CAD and RP are two sets of tools used by product designers in developing products from initial concept to manufactured product.

CAD and RP are embedded in product design, engineering and manufacturing. These technologies have greatly improved productivity by enabling designers and engineers to explore and to push the limits of product form and visual complexity, to evaluate better and to test more accurately their designs in ways not possible in the recent past, and to design products within ever shorter product development timescales. As advances in rapid prototyping technologies accelerate, these processes are increasingly used not only as a means to produce prototype parts but also to manufacture components and products, while at the same time they are freeing designers from many of the constraints placed on them by traditional manufacturing processes.

The computer is an invaluable tool in the design process, enabling designers to create and output virtual models as high-quality rapid prototyped models in order to evaluate their designs in the real world. CAD and RP now play a central role in design development and are a fundamental part of the professional practice of product design. It is therefore important for product design students to be aware of the range of CAD and RP processes used in industry, of how they are used and of the similarities and differences between different processes. This information can be difficult to find. This book aims to provide an informative, engaging and useful overview of the fundamental principles of computer-aided design and rapid prototyping and, through a variety of case studies, to reveal some of the processes by which these tools are being used by designers and researchers.

Organization of this book
Chapters 1 and 2 focus on the use of CAD and RP and include explanations of principles and processes, with the aid of screenshots, computer-generated images, photographs and illustrations. Chapter 3 focuses on research and discusses recent and speculative developments. Case studies of international product design consultancies, global manufacturing brands, leading product design practitioners and leading researchers are used throughout the book to provide a clear picture of current industry practice and research.