Introduce

The process has evolved as a special area of the wider foundry industry. It has developed over the last 50 plus years into a viable approach for the production of commercial castings competing directly with traditional sand-cast parts on a cost analysis basis. Its roots are in the area of casting small jewelry, ornamental and similar sized parts. This traditional area continues today and as an example crowns for dentists and jewelry are investment castings. The Second World War era began the casting of larger parts for military and aircraft applications. The movement of the process during this era from an art to an identified and quantified technology laid the groundwork for commercialization of the process. Automation of the process continued the ever-increasing acceptance of investment cast parts as a cost effective way to producing metal parts.