The term silicone was coined by Frederick Kipping, who pioneered the study of the organic compounds of silicon. Silicones are nonstick, rubber-like and heat-resistant compounds commonly used in lubricants, adhesives, cookware, insulation, sealants, medical applications, and breast implants. They are very stable and resist the effects of heat, water and oxidizing agents. Silicones are any of a diverse class of elastomers, fluids or resins based on polymerized siloxanes, substances whose molecules consist of chains made of alternating silicon and oxygen atoms. Silicone rubber, silicone resin, silicone oil and silicone grease are some common forms of silicone. Silicone rubbers are used as caulking material and gaskets; in specialized tubing; as electrical insulators in coatings, varnishes and encapsulations; as automobile engine components; as flexible windows in air locks and face masks; as surgical membranes and implants; and for laminating glass cloth. Silicone fluids are used in emulsion-breaking compositions, breast implants and hydraulic fluids, and as lubricants, adhesives, protective coatings, and water repellents. Silicones, due to the low water solubility and good spreading properties, are used as active compound in defoamers. Silicone is becoming an important product in the cookware industry and can be used where contact with food is required. Silicone has the potential of replacing plastic in creating toys. The gel form of silicone is used in breast implants, dressings, bandages and a variety of other medical uses. Silicone grease in the automotive field is used as a lubricant for brake components because it is not water-soluble and it is stable at high temperatures. Silicones are ingredients in many shampoo, hair conditioner and hair gel products. Silicone rubber is widely acknowledged in the construction industry because of its strength and reliability.

The most useful properties of silicone are:

1. Low chemical reactivity.

Biodegradable means being able to be broken down into more basic components by fungi, bacteria or other simple organisms. Most chemicals are biodegradable but it takes different amount of time to break down, for example a piece of bread will break down rather quickly, and a piece of plastic will take decades and beyond.

Photodegradable objects are substances that can be broken down into their simpler forms by the action of ultraviolet rays present in the sunlight. Plastic, for example, is photodegradable. http://ecoskimple.org/

The earth is a watery planet. Two thirds of the earth surface is ocean. The land is covered with lakes, rivers, and streams. The earth is like a sponge soaking up rain. Water collects in aquifers deep below and flows downward to join lakes and oceans. Human bodies range from about 60 to 80 percent water content. Water is the fluid that carries nourishment to living cells of organisms that depend upon it to sustain life.

Rain falls daily on the planet surface and is vaporized off the surfaces of the earth and its water bodies. Vapor is cooled in the atmosphere and collects in the clouds in tiny droplets. These clouds eventually become laden and release their droplets and rain that falls to the earth’s surface. The heating and cooling cycles of the earth function as a global distiller wherein the sun’s rays vaporize water later to be condensed and fall to earth as rain. Rain is distilled water, water that has been purified by vaporization and condensation. As rain drops, it picks up tiny particles and pathogens that hang in the air. On the earth rain water mingles with bacteria, chemicals, minerals, and pathogens in the earth’s oceans and land. This wonderfully pure distilled rain drop is progressively sullied on its return cycle to earth. The development of the industrial revolution has introduced many new toxins into the environment that end up in the earth’s soil and water bodies. That is why that despite the fact that water is ubiquitous many humans do not have access to safe and health drinking water.

The word plastic derives from the Greek plastikos- fit for molding and plastos- molded. Plastic is a wide range of synthetic or semisynthetic organic amorphous solid materials suitable for the industrial or commercial products. Plastics are polymers of high molecular mass, that may contain other substances to reduce costs or improve performance. Modern manufacturing processes allow them to be pressed, cast, or extruded into different kinds of shapes—such as bottles, fibers, boxes, plates, films, and much more.

There are two types of plastics:

Thermosets, that can melt and take shape once, and stay solid after they have solidified,
Thermoplastics, that will soften and melt when enough heat is applied, for example: polyvinyl chloride, polystyrene, polyethylene, and polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE).
Plastics can be classified by the chemical process used in their synthesis; for example, as cross-linking, condensation or polyaddition.

Plastics can also be classified by their chemical structure, for example, silicone, halogenated plastics, polyesters, polyurethanes or the acrylics.

They can also be ranked by various physical properties, such as tensile strength, resistance to various chemical products, density, glass transition temperature, etc.

Other classifications are based on qualities that are relevant for manufacturing or product design, for example, electrically conductive, elastomer, biodegradable, structural, the thermoplastic and thermoset, etc.

Plastics have already displaced many traditional materials, such as paper, wood, stone, leather, metal, glass, horn and bone; and ceramic.

They are used in a huge range of products because they can easily be manufactured, they are relatively low cost and imperviousness to water and versatility.

NPD Network

In many cases the inception of a new product idea begins with identifying the need for a product device or process that makes certain tasks easier. Some products are clearly more necessary than others for example, the scraper used to de-ice a car windshield is a very useful product, during the winter months and in parts of the world that experience freezing conditions. The point is that even great products can have only limited market potential. Before considering the development of a product for commercialization, the technology should be evaluated for its feasibility.



CadModels.Biz

Cadmodels.biz offers a variety of services in the field of product development. Our services range from initial design, clean up and repair of existing data files and 2d to 3d conversion to prototype fabrication, preparing patent literature and performing the manufacturing processes necessary to bring your product to market. We can take your idea from concept art to finished production engineering, providing 3D CAD services for complete product engineering and design for the consumer product market. Have your concept designed, built, tested and manufactured through Cadmodels.biz.



Software used in Engineering

As with all modern scientific and technological endeavors, computers, software and internet tools play an increasingly important role. As well as the typical business application software there are a number of computer aided applications specifically for engineering. Computers can be used to generate models of fundamental physical processes, which can be solved using numerical methods.

2D versus 3D CAD

Summary

Rapid prototyping quickly verifies designs and reduces development time and cost. In today's rapidly changing marketplace, product development cycles have been compressed into weeks for what may have taken months or years in the past. Computer-Aided Design, or CAD, has revolutionized the way products are developed, and offers the designer a wide range of options to physically build parts and assemblies to validate form, fit and function. This article will discuss the use of CAD models in rapid prototyping to verify designs as it pertains to injection molding and die casting.

Summary

Since the 1940's, demand for high-volume, low-cost manufacturing has increased dramatically. One of the best ways to produce many parts that are dimensionally the same is through plastic injection-molding. And as advances in materials and mold making technology continue, injection molding will increasingly become the manufacturing choice. This article will discuss the application of injection molding for prototype validation and manufacturing.

Since the earliest days of rapid prototyping, experts have envisioned the application of the technology in the manufacturing process, and the focus of this vision has been on the initial cost and time savings that are realized when tooling is eliminated. However, the relative impact pales in comparison to the wide ranging advantages that exist when rapid manufacturing is implemented.

Rapid Manufacturing (RM) is the name given to the production of series or end-use component parts made using additive Layer Manufacturing (ALM) processes. ALM processes take three dimensional Computer aided Design (3D-CAD) data and directly print or grow parts in a variety of materials.

Although RM remains in its infancy, with up-take restricted almost exclusively to large scale OEM's and technology focused research firms, the technology has been cited as leading towards a second industrial revolution for the digital age, where it could have a significant impact on business, society, the economy and the environment.

Because RM has the potential to change the paradigm of global manufacturing, it is undoubtedly of increasing importance in both further and higher education. To-date however, RM focused learning tools have been restricted to printed materials, static web based resources and on-line multimedia content produced by technology vendors to stimulate sales.

The prime concerns of manufacturing engineers are productivity and quality. The daily challenge is to ensure maximum production quantity while adhering to the specified quality standards. Jigs & fixtures are essential tools to achieve these aims.

FDM (Short for "Fused Deposition Modeling") is an additive fabrication process which creates very strong parts from 3D Cad data. The materials used in FDM include ABS plastic, Polycarbonate (PC), Polyphenylsulfone (PPSU) and Wax. FDM machines function very similarly to a glue gun in the sense that a nozzle is heated which ejects a stream of molten material. After heated to a semi-liquid state, this material is extruded from the nozzle to form layers. The layer is traced out then filled in with the material in both horizontal and vertical directions. The nozzle is both temperature-controlled and can turn on and off the flow. The material can either go in one end as small beads of thermoplastic material or thermoplastic material which is unwound from a coil. The material hardens immediately after the extrusion allowing a flow of material to gradually form layer after layer. The only downside of FDM is that it produces very grainy parts. The real advantage of this process is that these parts are very tough.

Stereolithography, or STL, is an additive technology which uses a UV laser to create parts from a UV curable liquid within an SLA, or Stereolithography Apparatus, system.

For a part to be created using STL, a 3D model of the desired part must first be created, after which the 3D data is seperated into a group of 2d layers of the entire part. These layers typically range from 0.10mm to 0.050mm in thickness (although a resolution of 0.050mm in thickness is usually used) and this group layers is called called "slice data." The slice data is then fed into the SLA system and the actual fabrication process begins. The platform is first lowered into the vat of clear, liquid plastic photopolymer. The polymer used is sensitive to ultraviolet light, allowing the polymer to solidify when it is exposed to the light provided by the UV laser and the materials used in this process range from soft durable plastic to hard plastics. The ultraviolet laser traces and selectively solidifies the first layer within the resin onto the platform, which is currently submerged one layer under the resin.

After the first layer has been created, the following layers are added to the first layer while adhering to the previous layer. A resin-filled "re-coater" blade is swept across the top the previous layer removing the uncured polymer while re-coating it with fresh material. The platform is then lowered gradually submerging the platform along with the base of the part (and the part itself, or rather the section of the part, which has been already created layer by layer) deeper under the resin. This process repeats itself until the last layer has been created and the part is completed. This is a relatively quick process. Up to about two minutes is needed for each layer to be created whereas an entire run might take six to 12 hours.