onstruction of the furnace for the AMRC Castings Group was completed last year (see the December 2016 issue of Foundry Trade Journal) and in the past few weeks the first tests or ‘hot commissioning’ as it is known, have been completed successfully.

The furnace has three interchangeable crucibles with the capacity for melting 250kg, 500kg and 1000kg of metal, which give it the versatility to produce components with a finished weight ranging upwards from 60kg.

A molten mass in excess of 1000kg is required to make a 500kg titanium casting and only a handful of furnaces exist globally that are capable of casting near net shape aerospace components of this size.

With leading aerospace primes and manufacturing companies already lining up to collaborate on research, AMRC Castings is conducting initial paper and pilot studies to explicitly identify the risks and value streams associated with casting large-scale near-net shape components in titanium.

Low buy-to-fly ratios

This research aims to refine and enhance the casting process, reassuring engineers that casting can create lower buy-to-fly ratios for large-scale aerospace components whilst maintaining the performance expectations when compared to their forged counterparts.

AMRC Castings research and development manager, Mark D’Souza-Mathew, said: “AMRC Castings has over 15 years of experience in casting titanium and we are now aiming to assist companies considering a transfer of manufacturing from forged to cast for the production of large-scale near-net shape components.

“The cost savings with near-net shape castings are huge, with efficiencies in wastage and time-savings on the machining and finishing processes. Buy-to-fly ratios are improved from 5:1 with typical forged components down to 1.5:1 via the cast route.”

Casting can produce superior material properties to both forging and machining. In particular, the new furnace built at AMRC Castings’ facility allows enhanced cooling to better control the material microstructure.

Mark said: “We are reviewing the alternative manufacturing technologies to focus on our strengths, delivering to the end-users improved part complexity and ‘light-weighting’, realising reductions in manufacturing costs and operational emissions.

“We are working with the Aerospace Technology Institute and the High Value Manufacturing Catapult to define a programme of work and explore the boundaries of large-scale near-net shape castings. This will include retrofitting the workshop floor with sensors to extract process related information, with a view to developing manufacturing intelligence and supporting simulation software.

“In addition to simulating the melting and pouring stages, we also aim to apply finite element analysis to the shell development stage. The aims are to improve process consistency and achieve manufacturing excellence, providing end-users with an increased level of confidence when manufacturing high integrity parts.”

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