A Study of Ceramic Core for Investment Casting

In the recent time, the demand of complex castings is continuously increasing, particularly in the field of aerospace, automobile, medical, food processing, and machine tool industry. Investment casting being the oldest manufacturing process is always considered as the most preferred route for producing intricate near-net shape parts. Making undercuts, channels, or passage are the most critical and challenging activity in producing complex shape geometry. For making such castings, cores are used along with the investment molds. In practice cores, in foundries are made from different material such as sand, soluble wax, urea, salt, and ceramic. Among these, the ceramic material-based cores possess better properties compared to any other core materials. Presently, varieties of ceramic cores are used in investment casting foundries. The properties of final cast part significantly affected by the properties of ceramic core, which directly depend on the various core composition. Many researchers have made and tested cores with various ceramic compositions; however, no published research was found which summarizes them in scientifically. This paper presents a study on ceramic core material and core manufacturing process being used in investment casting. The article will be helpful for foundrymen in selecting the appropriate composition of ceramic core material and its manufacturing process based on the part-specific requirements.