Analysis of the application of 3D printing technology in the rapid investment casting process

JIANG Yaolin1, SHAO Zhongkui2

(1. Zhejiang Institute of Mechanical & Electrical Engineering Co.,Ltd., Hangzhou 310051, China;
2. Zhejiang Testing & Inspection Institute for Mechanical & Electrical Products Quality, Hangzhou 311305, China)

Abstract: Aiming at the application status of 3D printing technology in the investment precision casting industry, the technical principle and the domestic development situation of the rapid investment precision casting was studied firstly, then the domestic research status of the rapid investment casting process based on SLA, SLS and FDM were studied respectively as a key point in this article, and the advantages and disadvantages of these three technologies were deeply analyzed. The main technical problem of the rapid investment casting process based on SLA was that the shell was easy to crack during roasting, and the rapid investment casting process based on SLS mainly had the problems that the prototype strength was not high enough and easy to distort even though it can effectively overcome the shell cracking technical difficulty, and the rapid investment casting process based on FDM had a low practicality because of the low dimensional precision and poor surface quality of the FDM prototype. The results indicate that all these three rapid casting technologies still have their own technical bottlenecks at present, which makes it hard to be generalized.

Key words: 3D printing; investment casting; SLA; SLS; FDM