Even though the investment casting is an industrially fully developed process, its limits have been pushed during the last years towards producing larger and more complex pieces compared to the last decades. The following image shows the market positioning and development tendency of investment casting:
On the one hand, larger production volumes are being outsourced more and more to Asian countries, mostly because of the reduced prices for manual labour that still plays a very important role in the process. To cater to this necessity, Ecrimesa Group closed contracts more than 15 years ago with Asian providers and uses infrastructure in China in order to offer our clients this option if it benefits their projects. On the other hand, the area of application has expanded towards more complex pieces and smaller production volumes. Technological progress in both the materials and the machines has been crucial for this development, as well as simulation technologies that allow predicting the behavior of the pieces in the production process during th design phase and thus avoid problems in the production. As the size and complexity of the pieces has been evolving, the flexibility of production has increased in order to allow smaller series of complex parts. Ecrimesa Group offer projects of 20.000 pieces a week as well as smaller series of just 50 parts per year.
With these quipments, projects with pieces of more than 20 kgs with high metallurgic and dimensional requirements have been realized, for example for the energetic sector or oil and gas extraction, in stainless steel, certified according to AD2000 Merkblatt W0.
As well as aluminium parts.
Another relevant sector for investment casting is the automotive sector, where tha superficial and dimensional qualities reached through this technology allow for delivering fully-finished parts. This saves costs compared to other technologies and is applicable in a wide range of materials. In this manner, we develop projects for injection systems, in stainless steel:
EGR systems in stainless steel:
PowerTrain systems in carbon or low-alloy steel with heat treatment:
Locking systems for cabrios in carbon and stainless steel:
These are all fully-finished pieces, including machining, heat treatment and, if necessary, small assembling labors that allow the client to integrate the products seamlessly into their production processes, and with volumes of up to 1,000,000 parts per year. With our machining and heat treatment plants, we offer complete services to our clients for this type of projects, for stainless, carbon, or low-alloy steels. Currently, the machining sector is very important ofr our technology as well, as we can offer tailor-made solutions for designers in order to maximize the profit and efficiency of their facilities.
Other industrial examples for the appliaction of investment casting are machinges for the food industry. The high superficial quality reached through investment casting and the materials comply with the sanitary standards of the sector:
And lastly, a promising sector in the last year has been the defense sector, both military and civil, with diverse alloys.
Ecrimesa Group has the know how of more than 50 years and 9,000 projects developed for diverse industrial sectors, making us the perfect partner for any projects our clients might want to realize.