Daytona Beach Campus - College of Engineering

Department of Aerospace Engineering

Stereolithography Lab

181 Lehman Building

Contact Person: Jim Ladesic

Stereolithograpy apparatus

Description

floor planThis relatively small laboratory occupies 588 square feet on the first floor of the Lehman Building. Access to the laboratory is from an interior hallway. Two doorways from this room lead respectively to the adjacent Composites Laboratory and Manufacturing Laboratory. The floor plan is shown to the right.

Equipment

  • Stereolithography apparatus3D Systems SLA-190 stereolithographic apparatus, including computer controller.
  • Ventilated ultraviolet light curing oven.
  • ViewSonic 17GS desktop computer with Varimetrix software.
  • Ventilated laboratory hood.
  • Solvent cleaning tank.
  • Chemical storage cabinets.
  • Hand tools (grinding and polishing).
  • HP DraftPro XL pen plotter.
  • IBM dot matrix printer.
  • Resins and solvents.
  • Gloves.

 

Utilization

Stereolithography (STL for short) means three-dimensional printing. Embry-Riddle is one of the few universities in which undergraduate students have access to an STL machine. It is shown in the photo above left, the tall box with the large glass door, at the bottom of which can be seen a black vat which contains liquid resin. This shown more clearly in the photo below. One use of the STL machine is to rapidly produce accurate scale models of engineering students design projects. Students create their designs elsewhere using computer graphics software. Their graphics files, in STL format, are transferred to the desktop computer sitting alongside the STL machine. That computer drives a laser beam which traces out the intricate details of the three-dimensional shape, layer by layer, on the surface of the liquid resin. The resin hardens where struck by the moving pinpoint of laser light, which is barely visible in the picture below. The solid plastic model rests on a perforated platform. It is built ("printed out") from the bottom up as the vertically-moving platform slowly recedes towards the bottom of the vat. Build times require a number of hours, depending on the size and complexity of the model. STL rapid prototyping machines are now in common use in industry. ERAU students are fortunate to be able to obtain first-hand experience with this new technology.The facilities are used in a variety of courses, for student projects, and by local industry. The laboratory is a major point of interest in tours of the Lehman Center.

an airplane produced from the stereolithography machine