INVESTIGATION OF MODIFICATION OF BINDER SYSTEMS IN INVESTMENT CASTING PROCESS

Abstract

Investment casting has been extensively used for ages. Investment casting known for production of components with accuracy, repeatability, versatility and integrity in a variety of metals and high performance alloys. This process is used for manufacturing of various parts such as dental fixtures, gears, cams, ratchets, jewelry, turbine blades, military weapons, machinery components and other parts of complex geometry. Due to environmental and economic pressure there is need to improve current casting quality and reduce manufacturing cost. Improvement of properties of investment casting mould would improve the quality of casting. In the present work ceramic molds were prepared using conventional full fused silica slurry and modified slurry. Modified slurry consists of fevicol and beeswax as additional ingredient to prepare investment casting mould. Properties of the mould like flexural strength, adjusted fracture load (AFL), microstructure, thickness distribution, adhesion property etc. were measured for both conventional full fused silica mould and modified mould. Comparison and analysis of properties for both mould samples were done. From the study, it is clear that addition of fevicol and beeswax significantly improves the strength, load bearing capacity, adhesive properties and porosity of the ceramic moul .