Studies of Accelerated Drying of Ceramic Moulds with the use of Microwaves

Abstract

The article presents the results of studies of the process of accelerated drying performed by means of microwave radiation of ceramic moulds deposited on patterns made of foamed plastics used in the Ceramic Shell technology. The studies aimed at determining the microwave radiation parameters (power, downtime, and uninterrupted operation time) in order to obtain the maximally short drying times which do not cause pattern destruction. The analysis of results confirmed that an increase of the microwave radiation power shortens the drying time of the particular layers of the ceramic mould, however, at the same time, it excessively raises the temperature of the mould. With the microwave power over 1200 W, we can obtain the drying time of one layer at the level of about 30 min, and the temperature of the mould reaches the value of 70oC, which does not cause deformation or partial melting of the polystyrene pattern. From the point of view of production effectiveness, as a result of the application of microwave drying, the time of production of ceramic moulds was shortened from 7 days to 1 working day.

Keywords

• casting
• ceramic mould
• microwave drying
• foamed patterns
• replicast cs