Brief introduction to the application of thermal spraying technology in the mold industry

       At present, the rapid prototyping molding technology is more researched in the application of thermal spraying. This is a technique for producing whole parts by thermally spraying metallic material or welding metal, mainly by electric arc spraying. The rapid prototyping molding process can obtain parts of any shape. Therefore, some people even think that "rapid prototyping will lead to the next material revolution". Sulzer Meteo has done a lot of research on this technology, and it has been applied in actual production. In the past three years, they have used the rapid prototyping technology to make more than 100 horizontal water turbine buckets for customers. Nottingham Spray Forming Development Ltd., UK, has patented Rapid Tooling, which is used to make steel models and production tools by spraying molten metal onto a cost-effective, dimensionally accurate aluminium refractory sample superior. Tooling made with this method has been extensively tested by several major companies over the past two years, and both plastic moulding and metal forming processes have shown good performance. The first production tooling was made in the UK in September 1996. These tools are expected to produce more than one million parts. A recent demonstration of the process demonstrated spraying with two spray guns mounted on an industrial robot. 19mm thick steel coating, then install the aluminum pipe, continue to spray metal coating on it until the required thickness, and finally melt the aluminum and flow out to form a smooth water cooling channel.



    The low melting point metal or alloy wire has little thermal influence on the master mold, which can improve the precision of the mold. Therefore, low melting point materials such as zinc and babbitt are mostly used in the manufacture of rapid molds, but the mold life of such low melting point materials is high. Lower, can only be used for small batch trial production. To improve the life of the mold. You can spray a layer of low-melting material on the master mold to enhance the heat resistance of the master mold, and then spray steel or other alloys with higher strength to enhance the strength of the mold, thereby increasing the life of the mold.