Titanium Investment Casting & Precision Casting
TriTech Titanium Parts is dedicated to producing high quality titanium castings via its investment casting process. Investment casting is a reliable production technology for producing net shape titanium parts for both commercial and industrial applications. TriTech can manage the entire process from initial prototypes for evaluation, designing and building the tool, producing the casting, and finishing, which can include polishing, machining, and coating.
TriTech has extensive process control for the investment casting process. Investment casting is a very detailed process that must be controlled carefully at every step. Process variables are endless including temperature, humidity, viscosity, pressure, speed, flow rates, etc. TriTech monitors and controls process variables with PLCs and various control instruments. TriTech’s daily analysis of data is critical to achieving a quality casting on a consistent basis for your titanium precision part.
Investment Casting is also known as Lost Wax Investment Casting
TriTech provides tight quality control for its investment casting process, also known as lost wax casting or precision casting. Lost wax investment casting is a process in which a duplicate metal structure is cast from an original die. The process starts by injecting a wax into a die that is the final net shape of the part. Each finished casting is a duplicate of the wax pattern. TriTech’s injection is consistent from part to part, assuring extreme precision.
While some metals can take minutes for the metal to solidify, titanium must be melted and poured in vacuum and the extremely tight liquidus/solidus temperature range requires complete metal flow to be achieved in seconds.
TriTech titanium metal is melted in a vacuum arc furnace to control oxygen pickup and nitrogen pickup. A carefully controlled high vacuum is required and is part of the process.
TriTech’s use of a robot for the shell-making process is a very important tool for process and quality control. The robot assures that every action in the dipping process is consistent from part to part. Once the optimum shell-making actions have been determined, they are 100% repeatable from part to part ensuring a consistent titanium precision part.
Investment Casting Design & Production
TriTech’s casting facility is oriented toward small to medium size castings ranging from 100 grams to 25 pounds, and 0.5 to 20 inches. Typical annual volumes can range from hundreds to thousands of parts with relatively short lead times. TriTech offers its customers a short cycle time for production and delivery.
TriTech is always working to serve its customer with the best quality and price. For investment castings, creativity and experience is also important in the design of the part and the tooling. TriTech’s engineers can get involved early in the design process to help make the part efficient for casting. Various design features can make casting more efficient with higher production yields to ultimately save on cost.
The target is to make net-shape parts meet the tolerances. But for some parts, some machining may be required to achieve final dimensions. Significant cost savings can be realized where machining or secondary fabrication can be eliminated.
TriTech’s engineering experience allows us to determine the best process, design and tooling for your precision cast titanium part.