Citation
(2003), "Pacific Cast Technologies wins “Best in Class” casting award", Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, Vol. 75 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/aeat.2003.12775aab.023
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2003, MCB UP Limited
Pacific Cast Technologies wins “Best in Class” casting award
Pacific Cast Technologies wins “Best in Class” casting award
Pacific Cast Technologies (PCT), a Ladish company (Nasdaq: LDSH) (www.ladishco.com), has won a “Best in Class-2002” award in a casting contest sponsored by the American Foundry Society’s Marketing Division and Engineered Casting Solutions magazine. The award is for a PCT-produced thrust beam, which measures more than 90 inches in length. PCT supplies investment cast titanium parts to aerospace industry customers.
The thrust beam, which previously had been manufactured as a fabricated assembly made up of a number of forged aluminum details, was converted into a single, monolithic, near-netshape titanium casting. “This conversion reduced our customer’s raw-material input, machining, assembly and inspection requirements. It also significantly cut lead-time and non-value-added paperwork tasks,” according to Jack Golden, PCT’s vice president sales.
“This 330 lb component was converted without any additional casting factor. It provides a fracture toughness that is 30 per cent greater than the forging it replaced and delivered a weight savings of 1,000 lb per vehicle. This weight reduction enables greater payloads for the satellite launch vehicle in which the castings will be used,” Jack says.
In addition to weight savings, the customer estimates that the cast component will also deliver a cost savings in the neighborhood of $95 million over the life of the program. Conversion to castings from alternative production methods can result in savings in the 30-50 per cent range for the final component or assembly depending on part geometry, according to Jack.