Isostatic Argon gas forging of castings

In a little corner of North East Derbyshire just 3 miles from the border of Sheffield a high tech company is  working their magic with metal. Have you ever picked up your pint pot and noticed a bubble inside the glass base ? Imagine if that was a casting, indeed a critical casting for the aerospace industry. It would be rejected and probably remelted to start again.

All is not lost, providing the bubble has no link to the outer surface then we can remove it without the remelting costs. YES remove it. In fact we do this every day of the week on a routine basis with Aluminium, Copper, Titanium, Stainless Steel, Superalloys, Tungsten Carbide and Ceramics.

We use a modern day forging process, no old fashioned hammer forges here. We use a natural element, ARGON ( The Earth's atmosphere contains 0.94% argon ) Yes ARGON gas is used under extremely high pressure, together with temperatures relevant to the material being treated. Pressures of up to 30,000 psi which equates to 13 tons of squeezing pressure per square inch, combine this with the metal in its plastic state then pores are diffused out. The casting suffers no distortion or alteration in shape unless there are serious issues, surface dimples will show that sub surface porosity has been cured giving a far superior sealing surface for valve gaskets.

Before

After


Surface Connected porosity will remain but high value castings can be encapsulated
( surrounded by a fabricated can and sealed under vacuum ) and then treated to removed the surface connected porosity.

Eliminates porosity in castings or sintered parts.
Consolidates encapsulated powders to produce fully dense
materials for the manufacture of simple billets and complex NNS parts.
Bonds different materials to form unique, cost-effective components.