68th Annual Technical Conference & Exposition MONDAY, continued 1:40 p.m. - 2:20 p.m.
Paper No. 7: Rapid, Low Cost Tooling for Small Engine Castings Dan Sokol, Renaissance Services – PERFECT – 3D, Booth 318 A historical challenge for the U.S. Air Force is rapid development and deployment of new systems to meet evolving and emerging threats. In recent years, a critical element in the new systems equation has focused on expendable and attritable aircraft. Investment castings are critical to the cost and performance of the small and medium-sized engines for these systems. Essential turbine engine components, produced from castings, impact cost, lead time, and performance. A key driver for these castings is the tooling used to produce them.
A growing need exists for engine component parts that can be delivered rapidly, affordably, and in both small and variable quantities. This presents a challenge for not only essential castings, but for the tooling required to produce them, as considerations such as tooling durability and life, non-recurring and recurring costs, design and delivery lead times all become important variables in the decision process. For example, conventional wax die injection tooling is proven to be durable for thousands of applications, but the lead time and non- recurring cost are prohibitive for a program that needs 250 or fewer castings to be delivered in a few months.
To address this need, Renaissance Services is leading a U.S. Air Force-sponsored program for Low Cost Tooling for Castings; specific focus is on castings for small turbine engines. The team consists of foundries (Bimac, HTCI, Nucor, and PCC) and small engine programs/ OEMs (Air Force Research Lab Responsive Open Source Engine, FTT, UAV Turbines). Included are castings for rotating and non- rotating components (rotors, impellers, stators) as well as structural components (casings, housings). Materials range from nickel-based alloys to steel and aluminum.
2:20 p.m. - 3:00 p.m. Paper No. 8: Automated Methods of Slurry Testing, Monitoring & Control Lee Chamberlain, VA Technologies, Booth 107 Testing a slurry’s viscosity and thixotropy is a commonly accepted manual process in investing casting, however results can vary due to the human processes involved, and as a critical component, issues with slurry consistency may have impact on shell quality.
In conjunction with an aerospace casting foundry, VA Technology conducted trials to establish the measurement variation between current manual methods and new automated processes. Findings indicate a significantly lower variation of measurement using these new methods over those conducted by manual operators. As an extension of the recent technical paper presented, further analysis and development has been conducted.
Areas studied included direct measurement of viscosity and replication of the manual thixotropy measurement utilising robot manipulation as the means of control. These methods allow the easy capture and recording of data in real-time, and opens up the possibility of generating system for the automatic compensation of changes in viscosity within a much narrower band.
3:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. EXPOSITION
AGENDA
Thank you to our Event Sponsors
22 ❘ October 2021 ®
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