IN VESTM EN T CASTIN G S

CONTENTS1.Defination
2.History
2.Brief process
3.Process video
4.An example of turbine rotor
5.Need of investment castings.
6.Comparision of investment castings and sand castings
7.Advantages
8.Disadvantages
9.Applications in India
10.Conclusions
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HISTORY
The history of lost-wax casting dates back thousands of

years.
Its earliest use was for idols, ornaments and jewellery
In the 1940s, World War II increased the demand for
precision net shape manufacturing and specialized alloys
leading to investment casting boom.
Dr. William H. Taggart of Chicago, whose 1907 paper
described his development of a technique. He also
formulated a wax pattern compound of excellent
properties, developed an investment material, and
invented an air-pressure casting machine.

DEFINITION
Investment Casting (Lost Wax Process)
A pattern made of wax is coated with a

refractory material and then metal is poured.

"Investment" comes from a less familiar
definition of "invest"
"to cover completely," which refers to coating of
refractory material around wax pattern
It is a precision casting process ,capable of
producing castings of high accuracy and intricate
detail.
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FUTHER PROCESSES
1.Separation of individual components with high
speed cutter.
2.Shot blasting
3.Grinding for gate removal and thick edges
removal.May be manual or automatic.
4.Final product.

Investment Casting a Turbine

Rotor

Wax pattern
Cut-away of
Cut-away
of turbine rotor ceramic mold
showing
applied over
wax melted
over wax patternout of mold.

Kalpakjian/Howmet
Corp

(Metal then
poured into mold.)
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Finished
turbine rotor,
near-net
shape

WHY INVESTMENT CASTINGS?

Design Flexibility:Investment casting produces

near net shaped configurations, offering designers

and engineers freedom of design in a wide range
of alloys.
Wide Choice Of Alloys:Various Ferrous and Non

Ferrous metals are routinely cast.

Eliminate Tooling Setup:By offering near net

shaped configuration ,fixturing costs are

substantially reduced or eliminated.

continued

COMPARISON OF SAND AND

INVESTMENT CASTINGS
QUALITY
Sand casting
Tolerance (0.7~2 mm) and defects are affected by
shrinkage
Generally have a rough grainy surface

Investment casting
Tolerance (0.08~0.2 mm)
Good to excellent surface detail possible due to fine
slurry

FLEXIBILITY
Sand casting
High degree of shape complexity (limited by pattern)

Investment casting
Ceramic and wax cores allow complex internal
configuration but costs increase significantly

A D VA N TA G ES
Parts of great complexity and intricacy can be

cast.
Close dimensional control and good surface
finish.
Wax can usually be recovered for reuse.
Additional machining is not normally required
this is a net shape process.
Weight is reduced to some extent.
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DISADVANTAGES
Many processing steps are required .
Relatively expensive process.
Not suitable for simple parts.

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APPLICATIONS IN INDIA
390 investment casting units (12000 MT)

12-18 large size foundries

grown by 30%n last 3 years
210 investment casting units exporting product
Product profile
Valves & Pumps
50%
Automobiles
30%
Armaments
10%
Industrial & Decorative Hardware
5%
Electronics, Medical, Machine tools, 5%
Turbine, Railway, Textile, Material Handling Equipment
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CONCLUSIONS
Investment casting may be termed as lost-wax

casting
Investment casting is practical for prototype and
low-volume production applications. In less than
two weeks, prototype castings in numerous alloys
are ready for testing,evaluation or use.
Although it is an expensive process,it produces
quality casting.

CONTINUED

 In many cases weight is reduced by more than

50% percent thus inputing more raw material

usage and increasing the overall productivity of
the unit.
Unlimited design freedom since draft angles,
cores, parting lines, etc., are irrelevant.Very
complicated products can be manufactured which
are almost impossible by casting process,welding
etc.
Patterns and molds are expendable

U
O
Y
K
N
A
TH

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