CIRTES, European Centre of Rapid Product Development
CIRTES, European Research Centre for Rapid Prototyping and Rapid Tooling, is located in the heart of the industrial area of Saint-Dié-des-Vosges (France) since 1991. CIRTES also has a subsidiary office in the South-west of France in Carmaux.

CIRTES, Innovation by Recherche & Development
From its platform equipped with the main processes of digitalisation, CAD/CAM, Rapid Prototyping and Tooling, Rapid Manufacturing, High Speed Freeform Machining and three-dimensional measurement (2 000 m2 dedicated), CIRTES offers its facilities to companies, in a contractual way, its teams of Research and Technology Transfer in the field of the new processes for the rapid product development.

Main CIRTES research works is directed towards a technological research for processes, and particularly according to two directions:

www.stratoconception.com

Rapid Prototyping usually resorts to layered manufacturing processes.
Several methods are currently being developed :

• They use basic materials (liquid, solid or powder)
• They entail the design of new machines.

CIRTES is putting forward its own solution : Stratoconception®.

The machining which consists of taking off chips remains the most important manufacturing process. In a machining unit, direct costs can reach between 10 and 15% of the running costs. The control of machining, and therefore, the quality of the thermal part, results of a sharp definition of the cutting conditions.


Due to this and also to the increase of machining of expensive parts, the need for a protection of the numerically controlled machine tool against machine breakage and wear has become a priority over the past few years. The problem has been solved thanks to the development and use of cutting Tool Monitoring Systems (TMS)

CIRTES is located in the heart of an innovation and industrial creation center.

L’équipe R&D du CIRTES innove en optimisant son procédé original breveté de Stratoconception® pour la réalisation de pièces prototypes transparentes et homogènes.
Basée sur l’assemblage de strates successives, la Stratoconception® trouve dans le polyméthyl méthacrylate ou polyméthacrylate de méthyle (PMMA), un matériau parfait pour obtenir des pièces prototypes transparentes et fonctionnelles.
A partir du modèle CAO et de son fichier STL, le logiciel Stratoconcept® III développé par le CIRTES, tranche et prépare automatiquement le modèle numérique 3D pour le découpage des strates sur la station de prototypage rapide de Stratoconception®.
Le procédé mis au point utilise le PMMA en plaques et permet au final de reconstituer une pièce homogène avec la transparence du cristal.