If you’re familiar with the production of investment castings, you probably understand how important heat treatments are regardless if your project requires ferrous or non-ferrous alloys. Without the critical stage of applying heat treatments, the mechanical properties of the materials used will not be sufficiently enhanced. Therefore, a range of heat treatment processes such as the ones listed below are used in the creation of investment castings:
Vacuum Solution Annealing
Through the vacuum protection that this process provides, you can be sure that throughout the high-temperature process, the component surface of even the smallest intricate parts is protected. Furthermore, this can be undertaken on different grades (including precipitation and duplex grades) of stainless steel.
Hardening and Tempering
In case you’re wondering how this treatment is performed, the piece of work is heated to elevated temperatures over 780˚C before the hardened steel is toughened by tempering to remove the brittleness. Aside from the fact that the reason behind the application of the hardening and tempering process is the enhancement and improvement of the mechanical properties of steel, this can also raise wear resistance, increase fatigue life, and offer anti-corrosion properties.
Precipitation Hardening
This process, also called age hardening, is a treatment that’s used to harden certain types of stainless steel, aluminum, as well as other copper-based alloys. To achieve the desired hardness, the precipitation hardening treatment is applied after a solution annealing treatment that’s carried out at high temperature. This is then followed by one or more age hardening processes.
Normalizing
This type of heat treatment is much similar to annealing except for the fact that the steel castings are cooled down in open air or with the use of fans. Doing so will help the investment castings achieve higher strength.
Get More Information About Investment Castings!
Did you know that the utilization of the investment castings process allows you to reduce your component weight and eliminate costly machining? Learn more about investment castings by calling Ferralloy, Inc. today!