Castings research facilities

-Batch and continuous mixers for chemically bonded sand moulding

-Resistance melting furnace for up to 200 kg of light alloys

-Induction melting facilities for up to 100kg of ferrous alloys

-High power induction skull melting furnace for reactive alloys

-Vacuum induction rollover furnace for ~8 kg of nickel alloys (or equivalent)

- Real-time X-ray radiography to study metal flow and solidification in moulds

-Ceramic Investment Mould Manufacture

Fully computer controlled and air conditioned shelling facility with:

Air conditioned shell drying chamber with:

Rotary air diffuser
Pulsed and continuous air flow with variable configurations
Environment controlled to ranges of 15 to 30˚C and 40 to 90% RH and air velocities between 2.03 to 10.16 ms-1
Real time telemetry for monitoring of humidity, temperature and conductivity of shell moulds during the drying process is also available

State of the Art Investment Casting Facility:

-Battenfield Injection Moulding Machine

-Mueller Phipps Wax Injection Machine

Paste wax injection machine with 18 tonne clamping force and programmable flow control.

-Motoman Robotic Ceramic Shell Manufacture

-Boilerclave TM Wax Removal

The LBBC BoilerclaveTM has a 10 bar maximum working pressure and is incorporated with several additional features:

PLC control
Programmable controlled exhaust cycle
Wax blow-down
2 viewing ports and 2 multiple thermocouple ports
Eight permanent type K thermocouples are distributed around a specially built internal frame allowing constant monitoring of vessel thermal profiles
The second port has space for up to 32 non-permanent thermocouples, which are used to instrument both wax and shell
The plc controller is also instrumented with a pressure transducer which can be separately data logged

University of Birmingham