Evaporative-pattern casting

Evaporative-pattern casting is a type of casting process that uses a pattern made from a material that will evaporate when the molten metal is poured into the molding cavity. The most common evaporative-pattern material used is polystyrene foam.[1]

The two major evaporative-pattern casting processes are:[1]

The main difference is that lost-foam casting uses an unbonded sand and full-mold casting uses a bonded sand (or green sand). Because this difference is quite small there is much overlap in the terminology. Non-proprietary terms that have been used to describe these processes include: cavityless casting,[2] evaporative foam casting, foam vaporization casting, lost pattern casting, the castral process, and expanded polystyrene molding.[3][4] Proprietary terms included Styro-cast,[5] Foam Cast,[6] Replicast,[7] Policast.[4] and Lost Foam Sintered Shell (LFSS)[8]

  1. ^ a b Degarmo, Black & Kohser 2003, p. 321.
  2. ^ U.S. patent 4,068,704.
  3. ^ American Society for Metals et al. 1991, p. 229.
  4. ^ a b Totten, Funatani & Xie 2004, p. 357.
  5. ^ Styro-cast, retrieved 2009-03-29[permanent dead link].
  6. ^ American Foam Cast, retrieved 2009-03-29.
  7. ^ Replicast Process (CS), retrieved 2009-03-29.
  8. ^ "Metafore Castings Private Limited - Pioneers in Stainless Steel, Alloy Steel and SGI Castings through Lost Foam Sintered Shell Process in India". www.metaforecastings.com. Retrieved 2018-12-05.