Vacuum Precision Investment Casting Furnaces
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An Inductotherm Croup Company Vacuum Prcision Investment Casting Furnaces

VPIC— The Process The production of advanced superalloy components for applications in aerospace, power generation, automotive, biomedical, chemical or recreational uses is accomplished in a Vacuum Precision Investment Casting Furnace. Conventional processing produces castings having equiaxed, or randomly orientated, grain structures. Using the principles of the ‘lost wax’ process, a ceramic mold is prepared and heated prior to casting. A measured quantity of pre-alloyed metal is then rapidly re-melted and poured into the mold under vacuum. Directionally solidified (DS) and single-crystal...

An Inductotherm Croup Company Vacuum Prcision Investment Casting Furnaces VPIC is extensively used for the manufacture of high performance castings in the Aerospace, Industrial Gas Turbine, Automotive and Biomdical markets. The two chamber design features a melt chamber, containing the induction melting coil, with a vacuum isolation valve separating the melt chamber from the mold chamber. The mold chamber incorporates the mold transfer mechanism system allowing for the melt down of the charge in the melt chamber independent of the ceramic mold handling and transfer operations. Some features...

In Equiax casting furnaces, no special consideration is given to controlling the solidification conditions in the mold from the furnace design. Solidification is controlled by the customers mold design and thermal insulation placed around the mold. The resulting casting has a crystalline structure with randomly oriented grains. With the melting chamber under vacuum, the two-chamber design allows a pre-heated ceramic mold to be loaded into the mold chamber and the chamber rapidly evacuated. The interconnecting valve between the two chambers is then opened and the mold transported by either a...

An Inductotherm Croup Company DS / SC Casting Furnaces Directionally solidified and single crystal castings have also become common place in advanced turbine technology due to their improved mechanical properties at very high temperature service. Furnaces to cast these components have additional features employed in their design to exert a high level of control over the solidification process in the casting. Controlled solidification furnaces are in general appearance similar to the vertically orientated equiax furnace. However, in addition to the induction melting coil, the upper melting...

Controls and Automation Historically, vacuum melting furnaces were essentially manually operated and it was not uncommon to have significant variances in product quality depending on the operators involved. Today, PLC and PC based supervision control systems have fully automated the VPIC furnace and operators merely have to select an appropriate ‘menu’ for the cast to be performed. All furnace operations can then be performed automatically, thus maintaining consistency between casts. All Consarc furnace installations are supplied with a fully integrated and interlocked control system for...

An Inductotherm Croup Company Latest Technologies The following are a slection of some design features we have developed that are available to customers: Fast melting technology The productivity of an equiax furnace is limited only by the rate at which the base charge material can be melted. With the assistance of electromagnetic modeling, induction power supplies can be designed with the melting power KW maximized for a given range of melt capacities and charge sizes. Rapid exchange melt coils The time required to exchange melt coils is also a detriment to productivity. Consarc rapid...

For more information visit www.consarc.com. CONSARC CORPORATION 100 Indel Avenue P.O. Box 156 Rancocas, New Jersey 08073 Phone: +1 (609) 267-8000 Fax: +1 (609) 267-1366 E-mail: sales@consarc.com www.consarc.com CONSARC ENGINEERING LIMITED 9 Woodside Eurocentral Holytown, North Lanarkshire ML14XL Scotland,United Kingdom Phone: +44 (0)1698 730430 Fax: +44 (0)1698 730431 E-mail: sales@consarceng.com www.consarceng.com