Rapid prototype mold for wax patterns with the help of phase change materials

This paper presents a new process to produce wax patterns using a rapid prototyping made mold and a phase changing material (PCM). A numerical simulation of the system was performed to fully understand the melting and heat absorption behavior of PCM and injected wax. To do so, the specific heat of PCM and wax was modified to account for the increased amount of energy in the form of latent heat of fusion over its melting temperature range. Then, a carefully prepared experiment successfully confirmed the validity of the work. Comparable to traditional wax pattern process, this new method opens a new window to obtain wax patterns with less time and more geometry complexities while providing good accuracy. Moreover, optimization by practicing different thermal conductivity of metallic–powder–PCM mixture revealed a possibility of further shortening wax solidification time, making this process competitive with the traditional process.