Materials Science Forum, Vol.471-472, 722-726, 2004
Manufacturability of fractal geometry
Nowadays more and more aesthetic product developments, assemblage and decoration designs are taking aesthetically appealing forms of natural objects such as rough terrain, ripples on lakes, coastline and seafloor topography. They are mathematical definable via fractal geometry theory and emerge to attract a lot of attention. However, not many methods for manufacturing of fractal objects have been reported in the literature and no previous research papers concern the manufacturability of fractal geometry. The paper will, thus, give a tentative classification and nomenclature of fractal geometry. Then, a state-of-the-art overview of manufacturing techniques is presented. By bridging the gap between fractal geometry and manufacturing, those processes that are promising to manufacture the three dimensional (3D) fractal objects will be highlighted. Afterward, a brief overview of limitation of those processes will be discussed.