Industrial Parts for Investment Casting Built on the Rapid Prototyping Systems

Reduction of product development cycle time is a major concern in industries for achieving competitive advantage. The focus of industries has shifted from traditional product envelopment methodology to accelerated or rapid fabrication techniques. Rapid Prototyping is the quickest, and can reproduce very complex shapes. With no up-front tooling costs, it can be inexpensive as long as only a few parts are needed. Despite its popularity, traditional Investment Casting suffers from high tooling investments for producing wax patterns. Investment Casting is prohibitively expensive for low-volume production typical in prototyping, customized or specialized component productions.