Piyush Arora

My Research Interests are Design & Manufacturing, Additive Manufacturing, Automotive

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Research Summary

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Title – Design & Development of a Hybrid Manufacturing system for Rapid Investment Casting

My project is to design and develop a hybrid manufacturing system that can be utilized for investment casting technique for small batch or customized part production by ensuring that it will have an affordable lead time and cost. Secondly, it must target the drawbacks of conventional investment casting process.

To achieve the objectives, the plan is to scrutinize on the potential large scale additive manufacturing techniques that can 3D print wax sacrificial pattern. Furthermore, the printing parameters need to be optimized to achieve reliable patterns all the time. Since, it would be a large scale 3D printed pattern, so I have to eliminate the significant stair-case errors and layer bumps. For the purpose, I would utilize a substractive module to machine the wax to acquire perfect smooth surface finish. After that I have to look for another additive module that can 3D print ceramic/gypsum slurry around my machined wax pattern followed by its printing parameters optimization. The extrudate from the second additive module would fabricate a mould for molten metal. Once, the mould is dried, then the procedure in conventional investment casting like dewaxing and pouring molten metal into the ceramic/gypsum mould would follow.

So far I have decided to use large scale pellet extruder as my additive module for the wax. It takes pellets as a feedstock material and delivers a filament bead by melting it in between the barrel and screw clearance using the heaters and compression force of barrel-screw assembly.

For the ceramic/gypsum slurry 3D printing, a continuous feeding system developed by WASP, Italy would be utilized.