Manufacturing Process for Premium Quality Titanium Casting

摘要

A chemically inert binder for producing water soluble rammed graphite molds and cores for producing titanium castings has been developed and tested under commercial foundry conditions. Mechanical property tests, chemical analyses, and the quality of the castings produced demonstrated the applicability of the developed process for producing premium quality titanium castings. Although several methods of applying the non-reactive flux to molds and cores were investigated, the most effective means was to incorporate the flux in the mold as one of the constituents. By varying mold and core processing times and composition, a simplified mold processing technique was developed for producing a chemically inert, water soluble mold and core material. The water solubility of the mold system permits the casting of intricately cored shapes not currently attempted. Intricate castings having a finish weight of 5-25 pounds were cast successfully utilizing this chemically inert binder. The feasibility of casting titanium in zircon sand molds using the nonreactive flux as a binder, was demonstrated. No gross reaction between the titanium and the shell mold was evidenced. (Author)