WINNERS
Carley Foundry’s 36-piece Assembly Showcases Investment Casting
C
arley Foundry’s bidirectional anchor assembly used in the oil industry was designed around the capabilities
of the investment casting process. Winner of the Institute’s 2014 Industrial Casting Award, the component uses 36 investment castings in an assembly.
All parts are net
shape except the anchor legs where teeth are cut in and bushings are machined to receive the center pipe. Parts are designed to function in the as-cast condition, the assembly showcases the advantages of investment casting. Cast in steel (AlSi 8620) the closed assembly measures 2.12″ x 15.50″ and expands 250% when open. The anchor needs to be inserted in a well tube as small as three inches, but when deployed, it needs to lock into a well casing as large as 7.625″. The anchor is deployed as much as 25,000 feet from the surface and at temperatures as high as 350º. It has to work first time every time or it could cost the operator of the well millions of dollars in lost revenue. The customer indicates this product could not be made effectively using other processes.
The surface
finish coupled with ability to create non-machinable features allowed them to create a product that mechani- cally operates on cast surfaces.
International Award Goes to Conversion of Existing Investment Casting from Vacuum to Air Melt
C onverting an existing investment cast part from vacuum melt to airmelt and maintaining the same qual-
ity allowed an Investment and Precision Castings’ customer to purchase the components domestically at a lower price. Investment and Precision Castings, Ltd. is the recipient
of the Investment Casting Institute’s 2014 International Casting Award. The aluminum casting is a 21cm x 13cm x 23cm gimbal and pedestal unit used in an antenna platform unit for multi-mode radar in a light combat aircraft. The mechanical assembly is made up of three major sub-assemblies: a flat plate antenna, gimbal box, and ped- estal unit. The gimbal box and pedestal are investment cast components made of aluminum alloy(Al 356A) of aeronau- tical specification. The airmelt parts benefited the customer in the
following ways: air melt process is less expensive than the vacuum process; parts made domestically were about 50% less than imports; lead time was considerably reduced; and validation of imported parts previously required out of country travel.
14 ❘ October 2014 ® Investment and Precision Castings, Ltd. WINNER
Carley Foundry, Inc.
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