What is Rapid Prototyping?

Back Pressure
The viscosity resistance of a material to continued flow when a mold is closing. In extrusion, it is the resistance to the forward flow of molten material.

Ballistic Particle Manufacturing (BPM)
A rapid prototyping process which deposits materials by means of inkjet technology. At one time the term was used to refer to a specific company's technology, BPM, Inc., now defunct, but prior to that it was an early generic term for inkjet-based RP. The term is not often used at present.

Base
Chemical substance that yields hydroxyl ions in aqueous solution.

Bashore Rebound
To determine Bashore rebound, a standard weight is dropped onto the specimen from a specified height and the height of rebound is observed. A perfectly elastic material has a rebound of 100% and a perfect absorber has a rebound of 0%. [Also referred to as ASTM D 2632 or D2632]

Battleships
Play it now...

Bioabsorbable
The ability of a tissue-compatible material to degrade at some time after implantation into nontoxic products which are eliminated or metabolized by the body. This term is often interchanged with absorbable, resorbable, biodegradable, and bioresorbable.

Biocompatibility
A biocompatible material is one which achieves an acceptable biological performance in a particular application: i.e. an acceptable balance between host and material changes in keeping with the intended function of the device.

Biomaterial
The consensus definition is a nonviable material used in a medical device, intended to interact with biological systems. biomolecules Large molecules found only in living systems.

Bleed
To give up color when in contact with water or a solvent; undesired movement of certain materials in a plastic (for example, plasticizers in vinyl) to the surface of the finished article or into an adjacent material.

Bleeding Edge
Beyond cutting edge. So new, its creators aren't entirely sure where it's headed.

Blister
A raised area on the surface of a molded plastic caused by the pressure of gasses inside it on its incompletely hardened surface.

Blow Molding
A method of fabrication in which a parison (hollow tube) is forced into the shape of the mold cavity by internal air pressure.

Blow Pressure
The air pressure used to form a hollow part by blow molding. brittle Hard and rigid but with little tensile strength.

Bluestone
An engineered,non-settling nano-composite stereolithography (SL) material manufactured by 3D Systems.[also known as Accura Bluestone]. For more information, click here.

Bridge Tooling
Tooling which is typically capable of producing quantities of several tens to several hundreds of parts. That is to say, it "bridges" the quantity between very low volume prototype tooling and full production tooling. In some cases bridge tooling may offer sufficient volume to meet production requirements.

Brown Part
A part which has been sintered or had other secondary operations performed on it to bring it from the loosely-bonded, as-formed "green" state. Parts in the brown state are generally dimensionally stable, but are often porous and usually must be infiltrated with another material before use.

Bulk Density
The mass per unit volume of a molding powder as determined in a reasonably large volume.

Bulk Factor
Ratio of the volume of loose molding powder to the volume of the same weight of resin after molding.

Business Ecosystems
When companies in the same markets work cooperatively and competitively to introduce innovations, support new products and serve customers.