Titanium Casting

From small lot sizes to high volume production of complex titanium components, Ti Squared is the premium supplier of commercial titanium castings.

Ti Squared’s titanium casting operation supplies components for various applications in multiple industries.

        • Medical - surgical instruments and orthotics
        • Industrial tools
        • Sporting goods
        • Marine hardware
        • Consumer products
        • Oil & Gas Exploration
        • Automotive - High performance parts

The Process

Ti Squared’s “lost-wax” casting begins with an exact wax replica of the desired titanium component. A ceramic shell is built up around the wax mold. The wax is melted, leaving a ceramic shell which is then kiln fired. A titanium-casting of a finished or semi-finished product is accomplished by pouring molten metal into this ceramic mold while housed in a vacuum sealed furnace.

The specific techniques required in titanium castings are many and complex because titanium has certain properties which make conventional metal casting methods impractical. Titanium’s high level of chemical reactivity eliminates the possibility of using standard refractory agents such as silica, alumina or magnesia without a significant adjustment to these formulations. Each pour of molten titanium alloy in our vacuum furnace necessitates the creation of a “skull” in exact composition to the titanium alloys used for the finished product. This “skull” or barrier protects the copper crucible walls from disintegration during the arc-melt of titanium composite alloy and resulting molten pour inside our vacuum furnace. Great care is taken during this operation to prevent atmospheric contamination which includes proper ventilation and the allowance of escaping gases to occur simultaneously while maintaining proper temperature gradients in the crucible and mold.

Having appropriate controls over the melting, pouring and escaping gases are necessary measures which are successful in reducing gas porosity. Once cooled the ceramic shell surrounding the casting is knocked off and this rough component part can then be cosmetically upgraded with options such as wet vibratory finishing, grit blasting, bead blasting or polishing.

Why Investment Casting

Description

Components with extremely high near-net-shape and surface qualities are produced by Ti Squared’s investment casting process. The high precision of our investment cast parts can reduce or eliminate some machine operations. Our process is commonly used for the production of large quantities of parts. However, we routinely fill small quantity orders. Ti Squared’s investment casting process uses wax patterns assembled into clusters or trees. The completed assembly is then coated with ceramic slurry which is allowed to dry and then heated to melt out the wax leaving a ceramic mold into which the molten Titanium alloy is poured.

Advantages

There are many advantages to using Ti Squared’s investment casting process. Designers like to specify investment castings because of the design flexibility it gives them as well as the close dimensional tolerances which the process makes available. In addition, Titanium alloys which are often difficult or impossible to machine can be investment cast with a high degree of consistency and repeatability.

Cost Reduction

Substantial savings is a powerful inducement to switch from other manufacturing methods to Ti Squared’s investment castings especially when components are purchased from outside vendors. This provides an easy cost comparison for a component using our investment casting as the raw material against the cost of using any previous method. Reduction in cost of 50% or more can be realized and is not unusual.

Design Flexibility

Ti Squared can investment cast almost any shape, simple or complex. Complex assemblies can be cast as a unit, and we can produce investment castings with holes, slots, bevels, serrations, thin sections, knife edges and other configurations.

Close Dimensional Tolerances

Close dimensional tolerances of +/- .005” per inch are possible with Ti Squared’s investment castings. Many parts can be used “as cast” with no additional machining due to our superior control of dimensions, tolerances and surface texture compared to other casting methods.