Generation of Process Plans for Laser Chemical Vapor Deposition

Rapid Prototyping (RP) technology refers to the fabrication of an arbitrary three-dimensional part layer-by-layer. Laser Chemical Vapor Deposition (LCVD) is a promising RP and manufacturing process that deposits metals and ceramics by local heating of a substrate with a laser. Even though many LCVD process planning characteristics are shared with those of more common RP technologies, LCVD process planning requires new efforts due to its unique characteristics. Unlike a conventional RP technology that only builds horizontal planar layers, LCVD can build conformal layers (conform to nonplanar substrates), thin walls, and fibers (rod-shape) as build primitives. Based on these unique characteristics, we have developed the overall approach for LCVD process planning and developed several of the main methods in this approach. In this paper, we report on the overall approach, the conformal slicing algorithm, and two different 1D path generation algorithms. Two examples are presented to illustrate the application of the process planning methods.