Abstract
T he casting of liquid metals to produce solid objects is a manufacturing process which has been practised for over five thousand years, with investment casting being one of the oldest known metal shaping methods. The technique itself has tremendous advantages in the production of quality components and key benefits of accuracy, versatility, and integrity. As a result, the process is one of the most economic methods of forming a wide range of metal components. The mechanical performance of an investment mould directly influences the quality, tolerance, re-work, and scrap rates of castings. The ceramic consists of a mixture of phases, which interact with each other during firing to form a bonded structure. The extent of this interaction and the properties of the resultant bonding phase are influenced by the purity of the raw materials. Specialist X-ray analysis techniques allow both quantitative and qualitative elemental compositions of ceramic materials to be determined. This was used effectively to quantify silica binder compositions and identify the source of contamination from within refractory materials. This data was then used to assess the effect of the phase separations on the mechanical integrity of investment mould shells during high temperature casting.
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