Cast Component Hardness Comparison for Investment Casting Prepared with Wax and ABS Patterns

The purpose of the present study is to compare investment castings prepared with conventional wax based patterns and acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) based patterns for industrial applications. Starting from the identification of component, patterns with three different types of pattern materials (namely: wax, ABS and ABS coated with wax) were prepared under different experimental conditions. The measurement of hardness was made on the final castings prepared. The results of study highlights that casting with wax based pattern gives better hardness as compared to other pattern materials (under given experimental conditions). The value of Cpk >1 for hardness measurement highlights that proposed process is highly capable. The adopted procedure is better for proof of concept. Strong possibilities are observed for the process under statistical control at suggested optimized settings. Hence the process can be used for mass production at proposed settings with controlled hardness. Further components prepared at proposed parametric settings have been studied for functional validation of the parts. The results are supported by microstructure analysis.