CASTING SIMULATION PROCESS OF AN AUSTENITIC STAINLESS STEEL USED FOR ORTHOPAEDIC PROSTHESIS

ALICIA E. ARES, S.F. GUEIJMAN, RUBENS CARAM Y CARLOS SCHVEZOV

Maastricht, The Netherlands

Conferencia; STAINLESS STEEL WORLD 2005 CONFERENCE & EXPO; 2005

Stainless Steel World Organization

Investment casting process is considered one of the oldest techniques of metals fabrication; join to metals and its alloys conformation. Even though this technique have been utilized for up to 4000 years, this process is extensively used to produce plenty of engineering products until today, including aircrafts parts on aeronautic industry and prosthesis implant parts made of stainless steel. This work has the principal aim of evaluate liquid/solid transformation step on an austenitic stainless steel AISI 316L type trough investigation of solidification mode using techniques of directional solidification at low growth rates. It was corroborated that AISI 316L type stainless steel exhibit A (austenitic) mode of solidification. It was observed that most of the steel alloy elements have distribution coefficient less than unity. Experiments of directional solidification added knowledge to the previous study and permitted to correlate secondary dendrite arm spacing (SDAS) with high growth rates of phase transformation parameters. Afterward, casting of a metallic artificial stem hip re-built was made experimentally and also virtually by simulating heat transfer process using AFS Solidification System software. By comparing both theoretic an experimental results, it is showed satisfactory assessment. Having both simulation process, solidification mode and solidified dendritic microstructure trough the whole prosthesis parts, it is possible to establish that, aided by microestructural evolution studies, casting simulation process can help casting processes to improve final product costs and quality.