Stereolithography and photo polymerisation Essay

Stereolithography and photo polymerisation - Essay Example Some of the advantages associated with Stereolithography include its low costs, production of durable objects, efficiency and its high precision (BÃ ¡rtolo). Basically, the process of building an object using the Stereolithography entails the creation of a 3 – D model of the object using a desired CAD software, using a software such as lightyear in slicing the produced 3 – D model into series of horizontal slices (Thin slices). An ultraviolet sensor then scans the photosensitive resin’s top layer thus hardening it (Miles, Cillo and Sinn). This builds a new layer which is then attached and lowered below the surface covering the distance of one layer. A new layer is then coated on top of the previously scanned layer and the process repeated till the final product is produced. In the process of printing, a laser is used in drawing the models layers, each at a time, to a photopolymer resins and in the process, each layer is cured at a time. In this process, there is projection of light beam – UV light – in form of a laser on the resin at a specific point and as a result, the parts of the resins reacts and then solidifies. This is then followed by the laser drawing the object’s cross-section resulting in a hardened layer (Newnes). As seen in the above description of the process of the construction of an object using Stereolithography method, it can be seen that light plays an important role in the solidification of the photosensitive resins. The above description is based on a construction using the laser lithography (Stereolithography) but this can be achieved, also, using other technologies such as the Photo – Mask technology. The creation of objects using these technologies is based on the principle of Photopolymerisation. This section of the paper is dedicated to provide in - depth research on the principal of operation of Photopolymerisation. Photo – induced polymerization, otherwise known as Photopolymerisation involves the absorption of Ultra