The Process for Casting Stainless Steel

Stainless steel casting molds the metal into a desired shape.

Stainless steel casting is a manufacturing process used for making parts required by many industries for a variety of applications. The procedure uses melted stainless steel and molds to create the desired stainless steel components.

Purpose

Stainless steel casting is used to produce components of various shapes and sizes with special properties such as corrosion resistance and strength retention at high temperatures. Commonly manufactured products include construction materials, and parts used in the automotive, aerospace, energy, marine and food service industries.

Process

Stainless steel casting begins with mold design and fabrication. Molten stainless steel is poured into the mold's cavity where it cools and solidifies. The cooled casting is removed from the mold and trimmed, cleaned and heat-treated to restore desirable qualities such as corrosion and wear resistance or increased strength.

Advantages

Casting stainless steel offers many advantages over other shape-forming methods such as forging, which compresses solid metal into a desired shape. Melted metal conforms to any shape and allows fabrication of geometrically complex components. Castings are typically more weldable, making the production of extremely large parts more practical. They are almost always lighter than forged components.

References

• Google Books: Steel Castings Handbook
• Metal Casting Design: Guide to Metalcasting Processes
• Steel Founders' Society of America: Castings or Forgings? - A Realistic Evaluation

Resources

• Industrial Metal Casting: The Manufacturing Process of Stainless Steel