Long lead times and high tooling costs for tooling procurement are areas of concern being addressed through the potential utilization of rapid prototype tooling concepts for the resins transfer molding (RTM) process. Recent advancements in rapid prototype tooling concepts combined with new materials and secondary finishing operations have been successfully applied to ceramics and injection molding applications offering potential improvements for RTM applications. This paper is based on the evaluation of various rapid prototype tooling techniques to support the RTM process. Tool families and methods considered are presented along with the results of the evaluation.
