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Issue 17	ICI EXPO Edition, AUTUMN 2007	Print Version


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COVER STORY - NEWSLETTER Issue #17
ICI EXPO EDITION, AUTUMN 2007

Breakthough in Investment
Pattern Technology

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 benefit offered by FOPAT over wax patterns include:

As shown below, a long thin FOPAT pattern was successfully injected in January and February 2007. The size of the die cavity was 6" wide x 24" long with a thickness of 0.040" on one end and 0.060" on the other end. This demonstrates FOPAT's capability to fill a long and thin cross-section AND the ability to remove such a pattern successfully in one piece.

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.

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.

The project details will be displayed at the FOPAT Booth at the upcoming Investment Casting Institute's 55th Technical Conference & Expo in Cleveland, OH, October 14 - 17, 2007. However, in brief, 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:

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

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