Development of Rapid Prototyping Process for Ceramic Cores for Investment Castings

The rapid prototyping of ceramic cores for investment casting of turbine components is a multi-faceted task. Such cores must have sufficient surface quality and dimensional accuracy to meet the rigorous requirements of turbine components. Appropriate RP techniques and materials must therefore be chosen that not only allow green ceramic parts to be produced, but further, meet the demands of subsequent firing, casting, leaching operations and metallurgical response. During development, each of these inter related processing steps must be considered not as a stand-alone development task, but rather as a tightly linked component of an entire production scheme. Therefore, successful development is dependent upon an overall systemic approach wherein each process step undergoes a development program that fully considers the limitations and requirements of the preceding and subsequent processing steps. Consequently, an integrated development approach is necessary in order to arrive at a solution which is capable of meeting all of the goals of this complex task.