Benefits of Lost Foam Casting– You Need to Know!

Lost foam casting is used to make intricate and complex metal parts. This method can create complete mesh models with unmatched dimensional precision and accuracy. It also reduces several steps of the production and assembly process, ultimately saving additional time and labor costs.

Lost foam casting is best suited for complex designs in automotive, marine, agricultural, military and heavy truck applications. It is also an ideal solution for mass-produced products that all have to be the same size and shape.

Let's dig deeper into the benefits of using the Lost foam casting.

Dimensional Accuracy

The lost formability of foam mesh is ahead of all other technologies, and the material is only meant to fill the mold in other casting methods. Still, in lost foam casting, the polystyrene foam expands in space, filling every detail of the tight internal parts.

Other methods may require the creation of multiple templates, which must later be assembled if the part is very detailed or complex, resulting in a potentially inaccurate final print. However, when casting lost foam, the entire piece can be molded as a dynamic three-dimensional entity much more accurately and detailed, with less risk of being thrown away due to a faulty design.

While some methods have challenges maintaining dimensional accuracy in internal paths, the best companies have processes suitable for complex designs, fully captured internal paths, and perfect mesh shape dimensional accuracy not found in other technologies.

Reduced Machining Steps

Lost Foam Casting helps reduce the number of steps in the manufacturing process, resulting in less time and labor costs. While most other casting processes require additional processing and assembly steps to assemble parts and smooth rough edges, the lost foam casting process can help reduce the steps required for molding, conditioning, or finishing. Compacting complex designs into one minimizes the time and energy needed to create the final product.

Lost foam casting also reduces the metal content in the finished part. Since other technologies cannot provide the same precision of net shape - and often cannot obtain a complete casting - additional metal is used and extracted by joining the parts together. However, casting lost foam requires less material or extra effort.

It can help reduce the overall waste, so it's also an eco-friendly option. Also, lost foam castings can limit the number of flashes that require secondary steps. Because there is a little flash with missing foam and pouring in the lost foam can provide a permanent surface finish, manufacturers can save time and the extra step of getting the right finish. Speed ​​and accuracy are hallmarks at every step of the lost foam.

Assembly integration

The lost foam casting allows for fewer parts, which minimizes processing and assembly, ultimately lowering the cost of the final product. Detailed castings that will be broken into parts using other technologies can be molded as a unit and as a whole, eliminating several assembly steps and potential errors. There is less concern that the parts will not line up or assemble correctly when the entire cast is used. And no additional welding or assembly steps are required to make the part. Lost foam casting is best for anything with internal passageways, thin walls, or complex construction, such as Cooling system housing, engine block, and cylinder head. It is ideal for any part with intricate details and dimensions that cannot be fully captured in any other way. And Lost Foam Casting has design flexibility not found in other casting systems. Design improvements are expected throughout the life of a component, and sand casting requires new tools and parts to accommodate these design changes. With the foam gone, changes are easily matched to templates without needing new tools.

Pick the Lost Foam by Arbomex

The Arbomex Lost Foam Casting is ideal for interior passageways, thin walls, and complex structures common in cooling system housings, exhaust manifolds, engine blocks, and cylinder heads. They also save time and energy through reduced production and assembly processes.