Evaporative-pattern casting
Author: Date: 2015-11-25 8:31:20
Evaporative-pattern casting is a type of casting process that uses a pattern made from a material that will evaporate when the molten metal is poured into the molding cavity. The most common evaporative-pattern material used is polystyrene foam.
The two major evaporative-pattern casting processes are:
Lost foam casting
Full mold casting
The main difference is that lost-foam casting uses an unbonded sand and full-mold casting uses a bonded sand (or green sand). Because this difference is quite small there is much overlap in the terminology. Non-proprietary terms that have been used to describe these processes include: cavityless casting,evaporative foam casting,foam vaporization casting,lost pattern casting,the castral process,and expanded polystyrene molding. Proprietary terms included Styro-cast,Foam Cast,Replicast,and Policast.