Advantages & possibilities
Unforeseen design freedom
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The designer is not subject to any restrictions within their planning of the interior shape of a casting by using ceramic cores. The most complicated interior form, undercut areas, deep bores, blind hole areas, narrow slots and even precise threads are no longer a major problem and can be achieved with high precision, repeatability and excellent surface finish to cost-effective conditions.
Complex thinner geometries of bores or channels can be realised with plug- and gluing-connections on ceramic cores. Wall thicknesses below 1 mm are achievable without any problems, depending on the geometry of the casting.
Increase of productivity
The time consuming process of drying ceramic shells can often be reduced with the use of ceramic cores as an alternative to filling these inner areas with shell material. Because the matrix of the ceramic cores dry out much faster compared to the shell ceramic material, this allows a much faster removal from the castings.
Costs savings
Ceramic cores can help to reduce the scrap rate for many applications significantly, therefore reducing the manufacturing costs of any casting project. These savings are also evident where additional mechanical operations can be avoided, especially when high-grade steel alloys are used for castings.
The substitution of water soluble wax cores with ceramic cores brings several technical advantages which show clear results on the cost aspects of the casting application. The main disadvantages of water soluble wax cores like
- low stability during storage and difficult production
- low dimensional stability during the casting process
- difficult filling of complex internal shapes with the shell material
- time consuming drying of the internal shell material
- difficulty with removal of the shell materials out of the castings
- lower surface values on castings
can be eliminated with the use of ceramic cores instead. Evaluating customer feedback, the main advantage of this substitution is however the lower scrap rate for the corresponding casting projects, compared to water soluble wax cores. It is our target to continue highlighting these advantages to engineers and let them appreciate the benefits they will have by using ceramic cores instead.
Environmental aspects
A major step forward in our technological development was the introduction of our special feedstock type V 209. We improve the removal of the ceramic cores significantly through the composition of this feedstock. This ceramic was specially developed for aluminium applications, but is also used more and more for steel applications. The particular advantage: the investment caster will have the benefit of being able to avoid any harmful environmental and expensive disposal of wastes by using chemical leeching methods. The ceramic cores can be „shot out“ of the castings by using high water pressure systems or other blasting techniques in short time scales. The usage of this special feedstock must be discussed for each individual application with the responsible technician.