ZHOU Cailou, ZANG Youjie, LI Jiyuan, SUN Jiaqi, GUO Fei
(School of Materials Science & Engineering, Tianjin Chengjian University, Tianjin 300384, China)

Abstract: Fused silica ceramics have various advantages, such as small thermal expansion coefficient, high thermal stability and low dielectric constant. The effects of the contents of paraffin, oleic acid and stearic acid on the fluidity of wax paste in the hot die casting process were studied. The influence of sintering temperature on density, shrinkage and water absorption of the samples was also examined. It was found that the optimal contents of paraffin, stearic acid and oleic acid were 23wt.%, 5wt.% and 0.6wt.%, respectively, leading to the highest flow performance of the wax slurry (77%). The flow properties are critical to the hot die casting of fused silica. With an optimal fluidity, the wax paste would be sufficiently uniform and thus would not be stratified during the hot die casting process, thus enabling more compact products.

Key words: fused silica; hot die casting; flow properties