For thousands of years wax, in its various forms and additions, has been used for patterns in investment casting. A recently developed material now makes it possible to replace wax as a pattern material for everyday production use. FOPAT (Foam Pattern) has been developed using a scientific formulation of various polymers in combination with a modified reaction injection molding (RIM) process and alternate tooling methods to achieve production of investment casting patterns.
The new patterns are cheaper, more durable, dimensionally stable and can be processed with standard investment casting techniques and possibly eliminate the autoclave portion of standard investment casting methods.
The presentation will detail work sponsored by the Department of Energy’s I&I (Inventions and Innovations) program and the Department of Defense’s SBIR (Small Business Innovative Research) program. We are extremely thankful for their support of this technology.