Hi to all,
maybe interesting to you: we developed a variant of Selective Laser Sintering,
which uses ceramic powder to produce the investment casting shells directly.
There is no need for burning out any binder or post-sintering, the material is
processed directly. Shell CAD-data is derived from the part's data by a software
tool. You can start casting just after cleaning the shells from excess powder
and preheating them like you do it with conventional-made shells. Because of the
zirconium-silicate we are using and which is known from conventional slurrying
and sanding of wax patterns, the properties of the resulting shells are
comparable to conventional shells. This especially means, casting is possible
also with steel. Aditionally, the advantage lays in by-passing the
time-consuming coating of a master pattern with ceramic you know from
"traditional" investment casting, so in our technique the metal parts can be
achieved in just two days. Actually the technique is "ready for industry",
however some further improvement is always possible. Project partners to do that
with are currently looked for. For more information, please contact us directly.
Best regards,
Carsten
___________________________________________________
Dipl.-Ing. Carsten Freyer
Fraunhofer Institute of Production Technology IPT
Steinbachstr. 17
D-52074 Aachen
Germany
Tel. +49 (0)241 8904 124
Fax. +49 (0)241 8904 198
MailTo:freyer@ipt.fhg.de
___________________________________________________
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