PROBLEMS FACED IN MANUFACTURING OF

BIOMEDICAL EQUIPMENTS THROUGH

INVESTMENT CASTING

PROBLEM STATEMENT
Typical challenges faces in
manufacturing of medical equipments
by investment casting for metallic Alloy
Ti-6Al-4V and its possible solution.

A typical image of hip joint which

use for implant

Evolution in the design from old

period to current date

Refinements in the design of

Secur-Fit Advanced

What is Casting ?
Castingis amanufacturingprocess in which a liquid
material is usually poured into amold, which contains
a hollow cavity of the desired shape, and then allowed
to solidify.
The solidified part is also known as acasting, which is
ejected or broken out of the mold to complete the
process.
Casting process is classified in following types
1. Conventional Moulding casting
a. Dry sand casting
b. Green sand casting
c. Flaskless casting

2. Chemical Sand Molding Process

a. Shell Molding
b. Sodium Silicate Molding
c. No-bake Molding
3. Permanent Mold Process
a. Gravity die casting
b. Pressure die casting
4. Special Casting Proce
a. Centrifugal Casting
b. Investment Casting
c. Plaster Casting
d. Evapourative Pattern Casting
e. Vaccum Sealed Casting
f. Ceramic Shell Molding

INVESTMENT CASTING
Investment casting can make use of most metals, most
commonly using aluminium alloys, bronze alloys,
magnesium alloys, cast iron, stainless steel, and tool
steel.
This process is beneficial for casting metals with high
melting temperatures that can not be molded in plaster
or metal.
Parts that are typically made by investment casting
include those with complex geometry such as turbine
blades or firearm components or biomedical equipments.
High temperature applications are also common, which
includes parts for the automotive, aircraft, and military
industries.

Types of Investment Casting

Air and vacuum casting methods are used in investment
casting. There is some use of rammed graphite molds in vacuum
arc furnaces for casting titanium. Most castings are gravity
poured.
Air casting is used for many investment-cast alloys, including
aluminium, magnesium, copper, gold, silver, platinum, all types
of steel, ductile iron, most cobalt alloys, and nick el-base alloys
that do not contain reactive elements. Zinc alloys, gray iron and
malleable iron are usually not investment cast for economic
reasons.
Vacuum casting provides cleaner metals with superior
properties and is used for alloys that can not be cast in air, such
as the -strengthened nickel base alloys, some cobalt alloys,
titanium and the refractory metals. Batch and semi continuous
interlock furnaces are normally used

Stage wise Process in Investment

casting

 In first step the cavity is made in mould of the

product which we need to obtain.
After then the wax pattern is ejected from the
mould.
Then the wax pattern is attached with wax sprue
and a wax tree is prepared.
Then the wax tree is dipped in to ceramic slurry
and the in stucco which makes the binding
strong. This step is done till the thickness of
ceramic slurry is obtain upto 5mm -15 mm.
Then the wax tree is allowed to dry to 16-48 hrs.
Drying can be accelerated by applying vacuum or
minimizing atmospheric humidity.

 Once the ceramic mold is completely dry, it is turned

upside down and put in furnace to melt the wax or
vaporize. Most of shell failure occurs is due to the wax
having higher thermal expansion co-efficient than the
material surrounding it and it introduces stress. To avoid
this the wax is heated rapidly so that outer wax surface
can melt, making space for the rest of the wax to
expand.
After dewaxing the mold is subjected to burnout at
temperature range of 870 C to 1095 C to remove
residual stress and moisture. Preheating allows the
metal to stay liquid longer so that it can better fill all
mould details and increase dimensional accuracy.
The investment mold is then placed open-side up into a
tub filled with sand and the metal is poured.
The shell is hammered or vibrated to release the casting
and then casting is cleaned up.

Advantages of Investment
Casting
The volume of metal that is used for runner and
riser is decreased.
The accuracy of investment casting is second to
none. Even parts with the highest precision can be
cast with little to no machining or detailing
required.
Since new alloys have been developed that allow
for more complex parts to be cast, the process of
combining several parts together to get the
intricate shape can be eliminated.
Higher surface of the component is obtain by
investment casting method.

A view of the interior

investment shows the
smooth surface finish and
high level of detail

Made from
Investment Casting
in Single Step

A shaft support
bracket that was
once made using
welding and several
drilling operations

Comparison of Surface Finish And

Dimensional Tolerance of some
casting Process
Casting Process

Surface Finish
(micro-meter)

Dimensional
Tolerance

Green Sand

5.0 15.0

0.10 0.20

CO2 Sand

2.0 5.0

0.05 0.10

Shell Mold

1.0 3.0

0.01 0.02

Metal moldGravity Casting

2.5 6.5

0.015 0.030

Pressure Die
Casting

1.0 6.5

0.002 0.004

Centrifugal
Casting

2.5 12.0

0.015 0.025

EPC Mold

1.0 2.5

0.005 0.015

Investment
Casting

0.5- 1.0

0.001 0.002

PROBLEMS WHICH ARE FACED IN PROCESS

OF TITANIUM ALLOY
High Melting Point
Poor Fluidity at low temperature
Strong chemical activity of molten metal with
mold material
Titanium has a high affinity for interstitials such
as nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon, and only small
concentrations of these interstitials are enough to
deleteriously affect its ductility.

 Alpha caseis the oxygen-enriched

surfacephasethat occurs whentitaniumand its
alloys are exposed to heated air or oxygen.
Alpha case is hard and brittle, and tends to create
a series of micro cracks which will reduce the
metal's performance and its fatigue properties.
Alpha case can be minimized or avoided by
processing titanium at very deep vacuum levels.
High Reactivity of Ti with the mold leads to the
increase in hardness and roughness and reduces
elongation and fatigue limit.

Alpha Beta Phase

The atoms of pure titanium align in the solid state in either
a hexagonal close-packed crystalline structure, called the
alpha () phase, or a body-centred cubic structure, called
the beta () phase.
In the pure metal, transformation from the alpha to the
beta phase occurs upon heating above 883 C, but most
alloying elements either stabilize the alpha phase to higher
temperatures or stabilize the beta phase to lower
temperatures.
Aluminium (Al) and oxygen are typical alpha-stabilizing
elements, and typical beta-stabilizing elements are
vanadium (V), iron (Fe), molybdenum (Mo), nickel (Ni),
palladium (Pd), niobium (Nb), silicon (Si), and chromium
(Cr).

 The 100% beta transition phase exist between

the temperature range of 700 C (1,300 F) to as
high as 1,050 C (1,900 F), depending on alloy
composition.
The most important alloying element is
aluminium, which, in concentrations up to 8
percent by weight of the alloy, can be added as a
strengtheners without impairing ductility.

Structure of Ti-6Al-4V having both Alpha-beta Phase

Effect of mold Temperature

Aim : To evaluate Cast ability of Ti-6Al-4V
Procedure : Three different investment moulds at
different temperatures of 430,480 and 530 C used
for investment casting of Ti alloy.

Effect of Mold Temperature

The molds were held at different final
temperatures after the pre-heating process.
Mold temperature had a significant effect.
As seen in the graph higher temperature mold
had a greater castability index.
Reason being that there was chemical stability
b/w the mold and the titanium

Effect of Mold Material on Titanium

Alloy
Research has shownandthat the majority of metal
mould interaction is due to reduction of silica, present
as binder and filler phases, by both titanium and
aluminium in the molten state.
In order to eliminate the interaction between the mould
and metal, mould materials with high chemical
inertness have been to used as the face coat material
during the investment casting process.
Yttria has been investigated as a mould material with
improved chemical inertness during TiAl casting, but
the limiting factors on the use of this oxide are that
yttria sols are exceptionally unstable and prone to
gellation and yttria filler is relatively expensive.

 Face coat materials such as ZrO2 is considered as

face coat materials for TiAl alloy casting in
industry.
The stability of the face coat slurry is assessed
by viscosity, thermal expansion and plate weight.
The properties of the moulds were evaluated by
friability, strength and permeability
measurement.

Fluidity Of Titanium Alloy

Due to the poor fluidity of gamma TiAl around its
melting temperature, the mould for investment
casting TiAl is normally pre-heated to help the
alloys flow to avoid mis-run and cold laps in the
cast parts.
However, the excessive preheating accelerates
metalmould reaction of titanium castingsand
may increase the propensity for surface-connected
porosity.
Therefore, a balance must be found in order to
achieve properties according to design
requirements.

 The spiral fluidity of TiAl alloys is directly related

to the mould preheating temperature in the range
of 400800Cshowed that defects such as misrun and macropores were found in the casting
when the preheat temperature of moulds was
below 500C.
Applying higher preheat temperature between
750 and 800C successfully eliminated many of
these defects.

Wax Pattern Tooling

Wax Pattern toolingis necessary for all
investment castings.
The tool is made from high grade aluminium, and
designed to accept the flow ofmolten wax under
extreme pressure, in order to allow it to solidify
into the wax pattern which is used to form the
ceramic mold during the investing process.
Unlike sand casting, lost wax tooling replicates
the final casting in reverse, due to the fact that
we cut cavities in which the wax flows to form
our patterns.
This tooling is often designed to be collapsible,
in other words, it must be able to be taken apart

 Another critical element of the tooling design is

that thetooling must be constructed so that the
wax patterns produced are LARGER than the final
casting dimensions
This is due to the fact that metal shrinks during
its solidification, so our Engineers must calculate
an expected shrinkage rate for every dimension
in the tool, and apply those expected shrinkage
rates when cutting the tooling.

Wax Pattern
The way pattern wax is handles during the
melting, conditioning and injection stage of prepattern production will directly reflect the quality
of wax pattern produced in wax room.
Proper handling method can eliminate a
multitude of wax pattern defects for investment
casting.
So the final casting can only be good as wax
pattern produced.
The characteristic which the pattern wax must
have are as following.
a)It should have lowest possible thermal
expansion so that it can form a pattern with the

b) Its melting point is not much higher than the ambient

temperature so that the expansion during the injection and
the energy consumption can be minimized.
c) After the injection, it should solidify in the mold in a short
while. This improves the cycle time in the die and minimizes
the solidification shrinkage which leads to the distortion of the
patterns on thick sections and to the surface cavitation.
d) It should be resistant to breakage, i.e. it is of sufficient
strength and hard enough at room temperature such that the
patterns can be self supporting and handled without damage.
e) It should have a smooth and wettable surface so that a
finished part with a smooth surface can be obtained and that
the ceramic slurry can adhere to its surface.
f) It should have a low viscosity when melted to simplify its
injection and, flow into and fill the thinnest sections of the die.

g) It should be released from the mold easily

after formation.
h) It should have very low ash content so that it
does not leave any ash inside the ceramic shell.
i) It should be environmentally safe, i.e. it does
not lead to the formation of environmentally
hazardous or carcinogenic materials upon
combustion.

Sr No.

Name of
wax

Density
(gm/cc)

Melting
Point
C

Volumetri
c
shrinkage
%

Bees Wax

0.97

65

7.25

Paraffin
Wax

0.78

64

6.20

Carnauba
Wax

0.99

87

4.20

Montan
Wax

1.02

82

2.45

Optimizing other Parameter to

increase the efficiency
Design of Gating and Feeding system
The critical aspects of tree/ cluster design are
gating and risering, or feeding. Basic concepts of
feeding sand castings, such as progressive
solidification toward the riser or feeder,
Chvorinovs rule and its extensions, solidification
mode and feeding distance as a function of alloy,
and section size also have been found to apply to
investment casting.
Feeding distances in hot investment molds are
generally found to be longer than in sand molds.
In investment castings, while separate feeders or
risers are used sometimes, more often the gating

 This applies specifically to numerous small parts

that are commonly investment cast.
The use of wax trees or clusters permits great
flexibility in the design of feeding systems.
Extruded wax shapes are easily bent into feeders
that can be attached to any isolated sections of
the part that are prone for shrinkage.
This capability makes it practical to cast very
complex parts with high quality.
It also makes it feasible to convert fabrications
assembled from large numbers of individual
components into single piece investment castings
at substantial cost-savings.

Pattern Tree
Before dipping, pattern trees or clusters are
usually cleaned to remove injection lubricant,
loose pieces of wax, or dirt.
Cleaning is accomplished by rinsing the pattern
clusters in solution of wetting agent, or a suitable
solvent that does not attack the wax.
The trees, or clusters, are usually allowed to
return to room temperature and dry, before
dipping.

Design Recommendations
The following recommendations provide a guide to the
design of investment castings.
Focus on final component cost rather than cost of the
casting.
Design parts to eliminate unnecessary hot spots through
changes in section sizes, use of uniform sections, location of
intersections, and judicious use of fillets, radii, and ribs.
Use prototype castings to resolve questions of functionality,
productibility, and cost.
Do not overspecfiy permit broader than usual tolerances
wherever possible.
Indicate datum planes and tooling points on drawings;
follow ANSI Y 14.5M for dimensioning and tolerancing.

Conclusion
Investment casting is practical for prototype and
low-volume production applications.
In less than two weeks, prototype castings in
numerous alloys are ready for testing, evaluation
or use. Making investment casting patterns out of
ABS materials saves both time and money on low
volume production applications as well as
investment cast prototypes.
With only minor modification to the pattern
design and the burnout process, eliminates the
costly and time-consuming tool-making step
needed for lost wax casting.
With this process guide and the skills of a
qualified foundry, companies in all industries can