Rapid prototyping by heat diffusion of metal foil and related mechanical testing

Rapid prototyping has made massive strides in the technological industries and is at the fore front of innovation. However, the majority of these methods use different types of plastic and other materials including resins and flour, for the production of prototypes. They can only be used as visual prototypes in most instances and do not provide sufficient information for direct material testing which is needed to understand the mechanical properties for large-scale production. The current methods employing powder metals have their limitations and are very expensive. There is an emphasis on the production of metal parts because they provide an environment for testing rather than approximations and usually give more insight into the design parameters. This research presents a new rapid prototyping process for the production of high-quality metal parts that can be used after production with minimal post-processing. The process is a combination of laminated object manufacturing and soldering techniques. The process is referred to as composite metal foil manufacturing, and its effectiveness is validated with lap-shear testing, peel testing, microstructural analysis and comparative studies. Specimens were produced using copper foils of 100-μm thickness. The results obtained have been promising demonstrating that the process is not only capable of producing metal parts efficiently but can also produce stronger parts compared to traditional methods. This shows that the proposed process has the capability to be a strong candidate in the field of metal prototyping.