casting-on-gasified-modelsLost foam casting

01.08.2012
First workshop’s line-up of casting on LFC-technology – Lost-Foam casting was brought into operation.
The complex’s body:
Model area; casting area; spectrographic and metallographic laboratories; final processing area.
Design output: 900 tons of valid casting per year.
The weight of serial steel casting is from 0,050 up to 100 kg.
Low-carbon and alloyed steels, grey and high-tensile cast iron, aluminium alloys and also alloys on copper base are applied as casting materials.

Production Stages:

Technology-LFC-scheme-en
Block-scheme
of production process.

  molds-model-3disassembled-molds-model-3

A mold

First stage is production of an aluminium mold in a compliance with the cast’s or details drawing.

product-3-model-400x300A model
Slightly foamed polystyrene is blown into a cavity of a mold, which then is being placed to an autoclave and is processed with steam and after that is cooled off with water. When a form is cooled to room temperature, a finished model is retrieved. product-3-model-painted-400x300This is an exact copy of a future detail. Then the models are attached with glue to a foam-polystyrene bar – an ingate, and by that casting cluster composed of 5-6 casts is agglomerated. The next stage is painting a cluster with gas permeable non-stick paint with further drying in drying chamber.

model-forming-in-the-sandForming to Sand

Casting clusters after having already dried out are placed to special moulding boxes and are carefully powdered with quartz sand. After this process degassing of a moulding box takes place at a vibrating (flow) table. This is a very responsible stage in a whole process as percentage of casting rejects (defective goods depends on exactly this stage).

metal-castingCasting of metal

A molten metal is casted into quartz pots that are placed over a casting cluster which is formed into a moulding box. The metal precisely duplicates a model’s shape while burning polystyrene out in the sand. After casting the finished clusters cool down and are retrieved from moulding boxes afterwards.

castings-on-the-clustercastings-finishedFinal works

The castings are separated from a bar and with the help of shot-blasting machine and technology casting rejects are exposed. Further thermic normalization is done and shot-blasting technology for metals is repeatedly applied.
Final quality control ends up all the stages.