Imagine if you could step inside your casting machine and watch the casting process unfold before your eyes. With X-ray vision you could see through the flask and investment and actually watch how the molten metal enters the flask and fills the patterns. Sounds like a caster’s space-age dream, doesn’t it? Well, with computer simulation technology, that future fantasy is now a modern-day reality.

Computer simulation of investment casting is a valuable tool that can be used to improve the jewelry industry’s understanding of the casting process, and in turn enhance quality and productivity. The technology has been used in industrial casting applications (of automotive parts, for example) for many years and with great success. It offers improved insight into metal flow and turbulence during mold cavity filling, as well as the cooling process and solidification of the metal—factors that can influence defect formation. Using the results of computer simulation, casters can devise strategies for avoiding defects in the casting process.

This article highlights some aspects of the initial simulation work conducted by the European Collaborative Research Project, CRAFT, from 2002 to 2004. The research focused on defect reduction during sterling silver investment casting and demonstrates the potential capabilities of such an approach and its application to the production of real castings.