Investment Casting Plant

INTRODUCTION
Investment Casting Plant is major section of Precision
Engineering Complex, which is a department of Pakistan
International airlines. ICP produces a number of cast
products of aluminium & steel alloys, & some superalloys.
ICP makes these special products to different vendors.
Investment casting, also called lost wax casting, is
widely used for producing ferrous and nonferrous metal
parts. Unlike other casting processes, investment casting
produces net shape parts with excellent surface finish and
dimensional accuracy. This manufacturing process is ideal
for applications that have relatively low production
quantities, because there are some steps which takes much
to complete.
ICP also equipped with normal & vacuum heat
treatment furnace. Almost all parts are heat treated;
normally superalloys are treated in vacuum furnace
whereas all other metals are treated in normal furnace.
There are some products of investment casting shown in fig.

1, & the flow chart of ICP is given on next page:

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Investment Casting Plant

Note: - All the pictures pasted in this report are taken

from internet.

FLOW CHART OF ICP

START

WAX PATTERN MAKING

CERAMIC COATING
DEWAXING

Fig 1 Some Products of Investment Casting

FIRING
PRE-HEATING
CASTING
FETTLING
HEAT TREATMENT
STRAIGHTENING
INSPECTION &
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FINISH

Investment Casting Plant

WAX PATTERN MAKING

Wax pattern making shop has two sub sections
according to process step, these sections are described
below:
1. Injection molding of pattern.
2. Cluster assembly.
Injection molding of pattern:
Here is the first step of investment casting. In this
process the molten wax is injected into the die through a
nozzle, at particular temperature, to take the shape of
pattern. Pattern is the actual object we want to eventually
be out of metal. The pattern can be made out of anything
that holds its shape at least reasonably well. But in
investment casting we need a highly fine surface, so we use
wax. Some wax patterns are shown in fig. 2.
Investment
casting also needs
gating system to fill
cavity
completely,
therefore
these
runner, gates etc
are also made by
wax but wax used
for this purpose is
reused. For pattern
& gating system
there
are
three

Fig 2 Some Wax Pattern

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Investment Casting Plant

Injection Molding Machines two for pattern & one for

gating system in ICP.
Cluster assembly:
Cluster assembly is the process of
joining a number of patterns in one
piece with the help of gating system. It
is feasible for casting. This process also
involves the finishing of wax pattern
surface. Sometimes the pattern surface
may damage by the defect of die or by
handling, this surface defect must have
to remove by filling or cleaning. Here is the picture of
cluster assembly in fig. 3.
Fig 3 Cluster Assembly

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Investment Casting Plant

CERAMIC COATING
Ceramic coating is the process of depositing layers of
ceramic materials in the form of fine & finer particles to
create a sufficient thick wall of the mould, to hold molten
metal for casting. A mold is the negative shape of our
pattern. The mold is created from mixture consisting of
casting plaster, sand, and water. When they are mixed, they
form viscous slurry.
There are some steps given below to produce a sound
mould for investment casting; & the ceramic coated cluster
is shown in fig 4.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Mount a holder at the top of

cluster.
Wash the cluster in 70% alcohol
30% tricholoro ether solution
Wash the cluster in 100%
alcohol.
Allow the cluster to dry for 24
hours.
Place in the queue of primary
coating
Each coat of coating involves three steps, and there
are 2 coat of primary coating:
i.
Dipping in slurry
ii.
Apply sand on wet cluster
iii. Allow to dry for 24 hours
Slurry for steel or superalloy
parts is made by alcohol &
binder whereas for aluminium
casting slurry is made by water
& binder. And relatively coarse
sand is used for aluminium
casting due to low pouring
temperature
of
aluminium
alloys.
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Investment Casting Plant

7.

8.

After completing primary coating, backup or

secondary coating is applied over the primary
coating. It has the same process as mentioned
above. But here coarse sand is used for just
supporting the primary coating. 10 coats for steel &
superalloys & 7 coats for aluminium castings are
practiced.
Finally they are dipped into
Fig 4 Ceramic Coated Cluster
the slurry & allow drying in
dryer.

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Investment Casting Plant

DEWAXING
Dewaxing is the process of producing a hollow mould
ceramic coated wax cluster by melt down of wax. This is
done by steam dewaxing machine ICP. The picture of that
machine is shown in fig. 5. To dewaxing heat up enough wax
to fill your mold in the wax crock pot. It is extremely
important to make sure that the temperature of the wax
does not exceed 200 F. The flash point of wax (point at
which it sets itself on fire) is only slightly above this
temperature, and wax fires are very difficult to extinguish.

Fig 5 Steam Dewaxing Machine

FIRING
Firing is the process of
strengthening the mould for
investment casting & cleans
the mould from all volatile
elements. There is a gas fire
furnace in ICP for this
purpose. They provide about
10000C for sufficient time to
make sure that the mould
Fig 6 Firing furnace for Moulds
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Investment Casting Plant

gets its strength to withstand or hold the molten metal.

Here is the firing furnace for investment casting moulds.

PRE HEATING
There are two pre heating furnace in casting shop of
ICP, one for aluminium and one for steel & superalloys. Pre
heating is done just before casting to raise the temperature
of mould so that the temperature difference between mould
and molten metal which is going to cast into that mould.
This lower temperature difference avoids chilled grain,
which cause by cool walls of mould. Figure of pre heating
furnace is shown in fig. 7.

Fig 7 Pre heating furnace for moulds

CASTING
As the temperature of pre heating of mould reaches at
about 60% to 80% of require temperature of mould, start
melting the metal, so that both melt & mould are ready at
pouring time. In ICP they melt grades of known
composition, therefore there is normally no need to set the
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Investment Casting Plant

composition but the melt have to clean from all other

impurity in the form of slag or any other mean. Impurity
usually comes from return scrap, refractory lining or
trapped gases. They are usually do three types of melting
according to material. This is describes as below:
1. Aluminium casting through pit furnace
2. Steel casting through air induction furnace
3. Superalloy casting through vacuum induction melting
Aluminium Casting:
In aluminium casting they
are making many grades, one of
those is 1353 Al-alloy, whose
pouring temperature is 720oC.
during the melting of aluminium
alloy they add some type of
degassing tablets to remove
impurities & do stirring with a
rod or any other thing to allow
gases to remove & come on the
top surface then it remove in the
form of slag then covering salt is
add to cover up the surface of
the molten bath. Finally they
add the grain refiner i.e.
titanium in the molten bath &
pour into pre heated moulds.
They allow castings to cool. Wait at least 6 hours
before breaking the castings open. This is more than
enough time, but it is much
better to wait too long than not Fig 8 Pit furnace for Aluminium
long enough.
Steel Casting:
In steel casting they melt the require grades of steel in
60 Kg air induction furnace. Here they also add 40% shop
return of same grade to maintain the composition & as the
melt is ready they pour it into pre heated mould. The air
furnace is shown below in fig 8.
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Investment Casting Plant

Fig 9 Air induction furnace for Steel

Superalloy
Casting:
During my internship I didnt get the opportunity to
see the process of vacuum induction furnace but fortunately
I understand the process by the help of helpful employees.
Vacuum induction furnace uses a vacuum to improve
the quality of the casting and minimize porosity. Typically it
consists of an upper and a lower chamber. The upper
chamber or melting chamber housing the crucible, and the
lower casting chamber housing the investment mould. Both
chambers are connected via a small hole containing a
stopper. A vacuum is pulled in the lower chamber, while
pressure is applied in the upper, and then the stopper is
removed. This creates the greatest pressure differential to
fill the molds

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Investment Casting Plant

Here in the vacuum furnace the pressure lowers up to

10 bars by using a combination of mechanical pump, roots
pump, diffusion pump, holding pump & hydraulic pump. The
crucible furnace in this vacuum chamber occupy 10 Kg
molten metal & pour in the same environment, to get very
accurate material in single crystal or polycrystalline form.
In the class of superalloys they do casting of Rene 125 &
Incoloy
718C,
which
are
the
nickel
base
alloys
for
-3

Fig 10 Vacuum induction furnace for Superalloys

temperature application.

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Investment Casting Plant

FETTLING
Fettling is a time-consuming and difficult process, but
it is also extremely crucial if you want your casting to look
good. Here are the basic steps:
Break up the ceramic mould.
Clean the surface of part with hot water jet with 200400 bar pressure
Remaining sand is remove by sand blasting if require
Remove the sprues and gates from cluster
Slightly machine the separation point of part

HEAT TREATMENT
eat treatment is a operation of heating & cooling to get
the desire properties of material. In ICP the four heat
treatment furnace, three furnaces are normal environment
furnaces whereas one is vacuum heat treatment furnace.
The operations are being done on these furnaces are
described below:
Normal Heat Treatment Furnaces:
In these furnaces usually aluminium alloys are treated,
i.e. A356, A357 etc. the operations are being done on these
grades is:
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Investment Casting Plant

Solution Treatment
In this treatment the charge is heated up to 550 oC,
where it allows soaking for 12 to 18 hours then water
quench. This form the super
saturated
solution in
metal.
Precipitation Hardening
This is the second treatment on the same the grade to
get precipitate of
the dissolved particles to get
strength.
Vacuum Heat Treatment Furnaces:
In this furnace steels & superalloys are usually treated
i.e. carbon resisting steel, 17-4PH, ASM 5376, Incoloy 718 C
& Rene 125 & the operation of treatment are
Homogenizing
Solution Treatment
Precipitation Hardening

STRAIGHTENING
After heat treatment the parts are distorted by rapid
change in temperature, so we have to straight them on their
original position. For this purpose ICP uses different fixers
to get the right parts & they have also measures the parts
with requirements

INSPECTION & TESTING

As per the requirement of customer ICP test & inspect
the materials. The have the facilities of following testing:
Fluorescent particle inspection
Fluorescent particle inspection is a non destructive
testing process which is use to detect surface crack on
non porous materials. In ICP there is a
complete
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Investment Casting Plant

setup FPI, with certified peoples. Here is a picture of FPI

on
fig. 11.

Fig
11
Fluorescent
inspection
Emission Spectrometer
Spectrometer
is
a
rapid
chemical analyzer which can tell
us the whole
composition of
metal within 40 seconds. A
common spectrometer is
shown in fig 12.

particle

Radiography
Radiography is
also
a
non
destructive testing process which is use to detect any
Fig
12
Spectrometer

Emission

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Investment Casting Plant

internal discontinuity i.e. crack, flaw, slag etc as shown in

fig. 13.

Fig
13
inspection

Tensile
test
Tensile test tells us the
strength of material, which
is why every c
luster in
ICP consists of two
specimens
of
tensile

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Radiography

Investment Casting Plant

round bar. A
common tensile test machine is
shown in fig. 14.
Hardness test
There three hardness tester in ICP Lab, i.e. Brinell,
Rockwell & micro
Vicker hardness tester, hardness
testers tell us about the materials that how is can
resist the
penetration on it.
Plasma coating testing
Fig 14 Tensile Testing
To check the strength of
Machine
plasma coating material,
they coated on same button then mount it on the fixers
with the help of epoxy & test it as in tensile test.
Metallography
Metallography is the study of microstructures of
materials. There are 2
microscope in ICP, which is
use in daily routine for microstructure of all
material
& also for R&D purpose.

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Investment Casting Plant

RECOMMENDATION
To get the fine structure & enhance mechanical
properties add 5% amount of inoculants content i.e.
cobalt aluminate (CoAl2O4) in the surface layer of the
ceramic mould.
To lower the porosity content in investment casting,
properly pre heat the ceramic mould, means pre heat at
that temperature where all the gaseous content have
removed.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Foundry Technology by P.L. Jain
Handbook of Investment Casting by James E. Sopcak
Internet
Materials and Processes in Manufacturing by Degarmo
& E. Paul.

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