The recent Investment Casting Days in Bestwig, which was sponsored by the TITAL foundry, concentrated on cost reduction, assembly-ready investment castings and increasing quality requirements. The Investment Casting Days at TITAL is a regularly scheduled workshop for development and design engineers from the aerospace industry.
One of the main topics of these workshops is the Hero Premium Casting®, an aluminium casting process that produces defect-free castings with above-average mechanical properties. TITAL holds the worldwide patent for the Hero casting process.
Product development using the Rapid Prototyping process was also a popular topic at the last workshop. TITAL’s new titanium furnace was discussed in great detail. The new furnace produces titanium castings with a component size of up to 60in and part weight up to 660lb. This furnace capacity makes TITAL the number one titanium producer in Europe.
The regularly scheduled casting workshops led by TITAL’s investment casting experts offer an insight into the production process and issues regarding proper material selection to professionals from the international aerospace industry.
Philipp Jerusalem, director of sales and marketing at TITAL, said: “In this forum there is always a discussion on the topic of investment castings versus machined parts. Experience shows product development people tend to design components to be machined out of solid material. Almost always we can demonstrate that the overall cost for the same component is lower when using the investment casting process.
“This is especially true of titanium products because of the expensive material and an even greater saving when producing castings that are ready for assembly. The best way to familiarise professionals with these topics is in an open workshop environment. Even for technical specialists there is no substitute for touching the product and walking the process. This depth of learning could not be accomplished any other way.”
TITAL evaluates the effectiveness and quality of the workshops using a questionnaire to capture feedback from the participants. According to the feedback, the workshops are 98% effective in meeting and exceeding expectations.
The next Investment Casting Days will take place on 3 June and 4 June, and again on 6 October and 7 October. In addition, casting workshops can be scheduled upon request. Investment Casting Days in English are planned for 8 September and 9 September. Interested people can register up to two weeks before the event by calling Katharina Dlhos on 0049 2904 981 160 or e-mailing Katharina.Dlhos@tital.de.
