PurposeThis paper seeks to review the industrial applications of state‐of‐the‐art additive manufacturing (AM) techniques in metal casting technology. An extensive survey of concepts, techniques, approaches and suitability of various commercialised rapid casting (RC) solutions with traditional casting methods is presented.Design/methodology/approachThe tooling required for producing metal casting such as fabrication of patterns, cores and moulds with RC directly by using different approaches are presented and evaluated. Relevant case studies and examples explaining the suitability and problems of using RC solutions by various manufacturers and researchers are also presented.FindingsLatest research to optimize the current RC solutions, and new inventions in processing techniques and materials in RC performed by researchers worldwide are also discussed. The discussion regarding the benefits of RC solutions to foundrymen, and challenges to produce accurate and cost‐effective RC amongst AM manufacturers concludes this paper.Research limitations/implicationsThe research related to this survey is limited to the applicability of RC solutions to sand casting and investment casting processes. There is practically no implication in industrial application of RC technology.Originality/valueThis review presents the information regarding potential AM application – RC, which facilitates the fabrication of patterns, cores and moulds directly using the computer‐aided design data. The information available in this paper serves the purpose of researchers and academicians to explore the new options in the field of RC and especially users, manufacturers and service industries to produce casting in relatively much shorter time and at low cost and even to cast complex design components which otherwise was impossible by using traditional casting processes and CNC technology.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate experimentally the effect of volume of casting, pouring temperature of different materials and shell mould wall thickness on the surface roughness of the castings obtained by using ZCast direct metal casting process.Design/methodology/approachTaguchi's design of experiment approach was used for this investigation. An L9 orthogonal array (OA) of Taguchi design which involves nine experiments for three factors with three levels was used. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was then performed on S/N (signal‐to‐noise) ratios to determine the statistical significance and contribution of each factor on the surface roughness of the castings. The castings were obtained using the shell moulds fabricated with the ZCast process and the surface roughness of castings was measured by using the surface roughness tester.FindingsTaguchi's analysis results showed that pouring temperature of materials was the most significant factor in deciding the surface roughness of the castings and the shell mould wall thickness was the next most significant factor, whereas volume of casting was found insignificant. Confirmation test was also carried out using the optimal values of factor levels to confirm the effectiveness of this approach. The predicted optimal value of surface roughness of castings produced by ZCast process was 6.47 microns.Originality/valueThe paper presents experimentally investigated data regarding the influence of various control factors on the surface roughness of castings produced by using ZCast process. The data may help to enhance the application of ZCast process in traditional foundry practice.

No abstract

No abstract

Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) is one of the most commonly used 3D printing technologies for creating complex parts from a Computer Aided Design (CAD) model. It is observed that mechanical strength of 3D printed polylactic acid (PLA) parts are affected by various parameters associated with part, process, material and operating conditions. One of the key parameters that influences tensile and flexural strength of 3D printed PLA parts is build orientation. Researchers have investigated the effect of a limited number of build orientations on tensile strength. Moreover, less work has been reported which studies the effect of build orientation on flexural strength. None of the studies modeled tensile load and bending load as a function of thickness and compared tensile loading capacity with flexural loading for different orientations. Therefore, an attempt is made to include a greater number of build orientations that occur during 3D printing of complex PLA parts. Build orientations considered in this study are flat, flat-support, edge, edge-45, upright and upright-45 with three thicknesses i.e., 1.2 mm, 2.0 mm and 2.8 mm. Tensile and flexural tests are performed as per American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) standards. Experimental results show that six orientations form two groups i.e., strong orientation group and weak orientation group. PLA appears stronger in tensile loading than bending. Edge orientation is strongest during tensile as well as bending loading whereas upright orientation is weakest in tensile loading and upright-45 orientation is weakest in bending. Force trends, it can be concluded that thickness can be minimized where build orientation belongs to the strong orientation group. Similarly, thickness can be increased where build orientation belongs to the weak orientation group.