The role of additive manufacturing in the investment casting process

Abstract

The aim of this study was to systematically describe the additive manufacturing (AM) technologies used for various casting technologies and how rapid investment casting (RIC) is changing the field of casting. The capability and effectiveness of additive manufacturing to provide investment casting production solutions has been investigated. The traditional investment casting method is less efficient in terms of cost and time to develop new wax models of solid tooling for low volume production or prototypes. To overcome this problem, it is proposed to introduce additive manufacturing to these processes to produce investment casting models. This paper discusses specific applications of rapid prototyping in this area. The study concluded that the use of additive manufacturing for investment casting instead of the traditional method is more cost- and time-efficient. Terms and designations: RP – Rapid Prototyping, IC, RIC –(Rapid) Investment Casting, PM – Project Manager, AT – Additive technologies, AM – Additive manufacturing