The mining and exploration industry depends on robust metal alloys for their strength and hardness. Investment castings made from these strong alloys are the ideal solution when designing many of these vital components, and parts for the mining and exploration industry make up a large proportion of the high-quality investment castings we manufacture for our valued clients.
The Process of Manufacturing Parts for the Mining and Exploration Industry
Components used in the mining and exploration industry tend to have characteristics that lean towards wear resistance. Many of these components are used to cut deep into the earth, sometimes for miles.Â
The bulk of these components are alloys that can be hardened to ultra-high levels, and multiple parts are usually needed in one setup or downhole drilling tool. The investment casting process is ideal for these kinds of components.
Investment cast mining and exploration components start as wax injections using highly detailed aluminum injection dies to produce both complex and simple patterns needed for the best casting performance for the application. Â
For lower volumes or prototype samples, we can 3D print the pattern in plastic and use that in place of the usual wax pattern.
The patterns are coated with a ceramic slurry, allowed to dry, and built up layer by layer until a seamless, self-supporting mold is formed. The pattern is melted out, and the mold is filled with a molten alloy suitable for the final application of the cast component.
Mining and Exploration Casting Applications
From the smallest wear pads to larger gearbox housings, our customers trust us to produce their critical components in a range of alloys.
From hardenable carbon and alloy steels for the components needing strength and wear resistance, to a wide range of stainless steels including extreme service alloys such as Hastelloy, Monel, and Inconel for applications where corrosion resistance is required.
What Mining Components Can Be Investment Cast
There are many types of mining and exploration products that our customers produce, all engineered to perform at peak performance in the toughest environments possible.
The wide range of materials that Niagara Investment Castings provides for these manufacturers is the same family of metal alloys that are used for a multitude of critical application components across a broad range of industries.
Examples of Mining and Exploration Products Produced
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Downhole drilling tools
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Wear pads and buttons
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Drill bits
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Shaft Sleeves
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Bushings
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Rock Hammer Drills
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Material handling parts
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Conveyor parts
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Crusher parts
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Gears and gearboxes
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Wear Liners
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Lifting Dogs
Advantages of Investment Casting For The Mining and Exploration Industry
From unlimited geometries to lower overall costs for the large quantities of parts required, investment casting of mining and exploration components offer many advantages over other manufacturing processes.
Investment Casting Vs. Machining
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Most machining operations can be replaced by investment casting.
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The ability of investment casting to achieve near net-shapes significantly reduces or eliminates the need for machining of the usually high number of pieces used in mining components.
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Fast turnaround for higher volume production with less labor cost is also possible.
Investment Casting Vs. Welding
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Converting welded assemblies for mining and exploration components to investment castings can reduce overall costs, especially with complex components.
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Labor cost is expended with each increase in the number of joints, the difficulty of the weld, the assembly difficulty, and the number of pieces being joined.
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In addition to the cost component, investment casting can be advantageous for improved part strength and uniformity, particularly with hard-to-weld alloys. Part appearance is also improved, since there will no longer be visible weld lines as welded and fastened parts can be cast as one piece.
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Investment casting lends itself to parts that will be higher volume runs if welding is involved.
Investment Casting Vs. Sand Casting
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Investment castings are far superior to sand castings in many ways. Due to the nature of the process, investment castings can be held to much tighter tolerances than sand castings.
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Investment casting offers near net-shape, thus reducing costly machining time.
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Investment casting can also produce castings with much better surface finish and no draft angles being required, which means cast components address the need for tighter tolerances than sand castings.
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Investment castings generally provide a much higher percentage of defect-free castings than sand castings of the same parts.
Investment Casting Vs. Forging
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Investment casting does not have the expensive tooling costs of forgings.
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Forging metal components also presents the concern of non-uniform internal stresses and parting lines, neither of which is present with investment-cast parts.
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Forging does not offer the precision, fine detail, and excellent surface finish of investment casting.
Choose Niagara Investment Castings for Your Mining and Exploration Casting Applications
Niagara Investment Castings’ foremost priority is making sourcing quality components as easy as possible. With a wide range of cast metals used across a wide range of industries, ensuring the quality of your cast components is crucial for safety, longevity, and efficiency.
With our experience manufacturing so many different cast components for the mining and exploration industry, our dedicated and skilled team at Niagara Investment Castings is here to help with any support in getting you started with wear-resistant castings for your particular application. Please simply contact us here to start the discussion.