We’ve Waited 5000 Years for This…

Throughout the ages, ever since metal castings have been around, the lost-wax process has been virtually the only way to make investment cast parts…until now.

FOPAT, a FOam PATtern material has been introduced. Being dubbed The Next Generation Investment Casting Pattern Material, FOPAT is multi-component foam that is pushing the design envelope of wax-based investment cast parts. 

The benefits offered by FOPAT over wax patterns include:

FOPAT work began in the 1990’s but was accelerated during the past few years through the efforts of a team of industry members working with government sponsored programs. The program would not have happened had it not been for the insight and funding by the sponsors at the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense. Over the past two years, almost a million dollars in funding has been allocated to help complete the feasibility and viability analysis which will now be followed by scale-up, tooling, and process optimization work. FOPAT LLC was created to commercialize the new technology with the support of the following sponsoring programs and supporting organizations:

• Dept. Of Energy, Inventions & Innovations Program
• Dept. Of Defense, US Air Force, Small Business Innovation Research Program
• GE, P&W, PCC, and Others

The project details will be presented at the upcoming Investment Casting Institute’s 54th Technical Conference & Expo in Milwaukee, WI, October 22 – 25, 2006. However, in breif, there are several cost and energy savings, which are being explored and quantified in the Phase II SBIR project by the FOPAT team.  A few examples of the patterns, tooling, and some of the castings are shown below:

Valve Die and FOPAT Pattern

Epoxy Airfoil Die

Types of Castings to do in
Phase II

Hip-Joint Castings Made from FOPAT

 

FOPAT offers the potential for saving energy, reducing cost, and extending the design capabilities of investment cast parts for defense and commercial components.

Please contact Mr. neil chaudhry at nchaudhry@buyCASTINGS.com or call 1-866-buyCAST to learn more about the various buyCASTINGS technology development & collaborative projects.