Investment casting – an investment in quality

2026,02,22

Investment casting – an investment in quality

Dear friends, today I'm sharing a technical document, "INVESTMENT CASTING – AN INVESTMENT IN QUALITY," which details the control aspects of the precision casting process, especially the control of dewaxing cracking.

Investing in Quality:

Investment casting, or "lost-wax" casting, is a key process for manufacturing high-quality engineering components such as orthopedic implants. This process can be applied to a variety of metals and alloys and can be used to produce both large and small castings. The application of investment casting has grown significantly over the past five years, and the current market value is estimated at $8.6 billion. Although the United States remains the largest single producer, the Asian market accounts for approximately 35% of this value. This white paper discusses the main issues involved in the investment casting process. It discusses potential problems in wax pattern making, shell preparation, dewaxing, and casting, and proposes corresponding solutions. In addition, the white paper examines some non-technical issues facing investment casting in 2011 and beyond.

Applications of Investment Casting:

Investment casting is used for applications involving complex shapes where conventional machining would involve numerous steps and be costly. This process is commonly used to manufacture biomedical, dental, and orthopedic implants, such as hip prostheses, femoral stems, knee components, dental bridges, and device housings such as pacemaker casings. In the aerospace industry, this process is frequently used to manufacture turbine components, including blades, integral bladed disks, and guide vanes, whose internal structures are typically defined using removable ceramic cores. It is also used to manufacture large structural components within airframes.

Process:

The process begins with a wax model (sometimes called a core), whose shape and size closely resemble the desired casting. A ceramic mold or shell is formed around the wax model by repeatedly immersing it in a ceramic slurry and coating it with ceramic powder (mud). Once the shell has formed and hardened, the wax model is removed from the shell by melting, leaving a cavity in the shell that matches the shape of the desired casting. Molten metal is then poured into the cavity, and after it solidifies, the shell is removed from the casting surface. In practice, multiple wax models are often assembled into a "tree" structure, with each wax model connected to a gating/runner system, allowing multiple parts to be produced in a single casting.

Advantages:

1. Investment casting is a highly reliable and stable process capable of producing high-quality components for critical applications such as aerospace and medical equipment.

2. High precision, capable of handling complex shapes, producing high-quality surfaces, adaptable to various materials, requiring less machining, and saving material.

Author:

Mr. Karl cao

E-mail:

caoyongjun@enon-cn.com

Phone/WhatsApp:

+86 15965270117