Industrial Ceramics Slip Casting Process
Posted: Sunday, January 09, 2011
by Gary Hateley
Anderman Ceramics Ltd
There are a wide range of industrial ceramic manufacturing methods which will be covered in the subsequent articles, this article will focus on the Slip Casting process.
The Slip-casting process involves using a “slip” which is a suspension of fine ceramic material powders in a liquid such as water or alcohol with small amounts of secondary materials such as dispersants, and binders. This material is poured into a mould which is typically made from Plaster. The mould is created from a wooden former so it is easy to reproduce a number of casting moulds. The plaster mould draws water from the poured slip to compact and form the casting at the mould surface. This dries to form a dense part removing deleterious air gaps and controlling shrinkage. Once the part is formed it is sintered to produce the finished product.
Some of these advantages include a low tooling and set up cost and it is a very simple method of production. Another sizable benefit being no expensive equipment is required (until you come to the sintering which is a cost for all ceramic manufacturing methods). The slip casting process does not generally require highly skilled operatives.
By contrast some of the disadvantages include the fact that this process is reasonably Labour intensive which results in slow production speeds. For higher levels of production many moulds are required and the skilled blending of the slip is vital to repeatability.
In conclusion slip casting is a very effective way of making small to medium volumes of simple to fairly complex shaped components in a wide range of ceramic materials.
For more information about Industrial ceramics please visit earthwaterfire.com
This Article has been viewed 740 times. (Not updated in real-time.)
No comments yet.We want your comments! If you can read this, you don't have javascript enabled, so you can't use this comment system. Please enable javascript.