AMP - Advanced Manufacturing Park

Engineers at Castings Technology International (Cti) have perfected a new technology which allows large castings to be produced more efficiently.

The new MEGAshell® technology provides the same benefits as Cti's existing Replicast® process, but now allows exceptionally large ceramic shell moulds to be produced to manufacture one-off and low volume castings of a size and weight far greater than most casting manufacturers would have previously believed possible.

So far, ceramic moulds with dimensions up to 2 x 2 x 2m have been produced, meaning that heavy section valve castings weighing several tonnes can be manufactured that are more than 20% lighter than the sand cast equivalent, and providing machining cost reductions of 50% or more.

To date, more than 3,500 ceramic moulds have been manufactured by the MEGAshell® technology, at Cti's facility on the Advanced Manufacturing Park (AMP). This has proven its capability to meet the market demand for large, near net shape castings, especially in costly alloys of steel and nickel. Latterly, Cti has refined the technology so that it can be used for reactive alloys of titanium and zirconium.

Titanium Castings (UK) Ltd also uses the Replicast® process - in which the polystyrene patterns are formed in an aluminium die - for volume production of complex, thin-wall titanium castings. The polystyrene patterns are a cost-competitive substitute for the wax patterns that would otherwise be used, and provide the precision, quality of surface finish and integrity that are normally associated with the Lost Wax production process.