Two large power supply units have been installed to deliver the energy required by the organisation’s new Retech Consumable Electrode Casting Furnace.
The furnace is capable of melting the 1,000 kg of titanium required to make a 500 kg casting and has three interchangeable bodies that give it the versatility to produce components with a finished weight ranging upwards from 60 kg.
Closed loop cooling systems to prevent the furnace bodies themselves from melting are being installed, along with hydraulic and pneumatic systems that carry out a number of functions, including removing air from the furnace and casting chambers – essential when dealing with molten titanium, which reacts violently with oxygen.
The systems are also used to rotate the furnace body to pour molten titanium into a ceramic mould in the casting chamber below, which incorporates a turntable that can spin the mould at up to 300 rpm to create a high quality centrifugal casting.
A new plant is being installed to make ceramic mould shells up to 2 m in diameter and 2.5 m high that could weigh more than 2.5 tonnes and be large enough to produce the largest variants of aero engine intercases up to 500 kg, and other structural aerospace components.
Furnace construction is due to finish in time for training and cold commissioning to start during November and will be followed by hot commissioning and the first test melts in December, depending on when permission is given to energise the power supplies.
AMRC Castings, part of the University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC), has extensive expertise in manufacturing smaller titanium castings, and its technology has been used to produce titanium castings with a poured weight in excess of 300 kg, demonstrating its scalability.
Initial casts will be poured into a static metal mould before trials begin using static ceramic moulds from the new shelling plant. Staff will then start building up the experience needed to operate the centrifugal casting system at full speed.
AMRC Castings’ new furnace is part of a major investment and R&D programme that is designed to enable UK companies to break into global markets for large-scale titanium aerospace engine and structural components.
“We plan to create a world-class titanium casting capability in the UK, developing the skills base necessary to enable companies to reap the rewards of carrying out a process that is very, very challenging,” says AMRC Castings’ Richard Gould.
In the past, only the United States is believed to have had the capability to cast near net shape aerospace components weighing up to 500 kg.
The programme is backed by the UK’s Aerospace Technology Initiative (ATI), government innovation agency Innovate UK, and High Value Manufacturing Catapult funding to help ensure that the UK retains its place as the second-largest national aerospace industry in the world, and the largest in Europe.
In addition to the new furnace and shelling plant, AMRC Castings has expanded its capacity for producing large scale dimensionally accurate replica patterns.
The organisation has acquired an SLA 3D printer that can make components out of photosensitive epoxy resin for replica patterns measuring up to 650 by 750 by 550 mm and a bespoke CMS Poseidon 5-axis CNC machine that can make single piece pattern components up to 2,600 by 4,000 by 2,000 mm from polystyrene.
It has also invested in a Teubert moulding machine to make expanded polystyrene patterns using metal tooling for longer production runs and a Pacific Kiln Furnace large enough to fire the ceramic moulds that its new shelling plant can produce.
