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Early Success for Pressure Casting Machine being Developed for Tableware and Sanitaryware

A novel machine for pressure casting teapots is set to be the first of many successes for a research and development project led by CERAM, the internationally renowned centre for materials testing, research and analysis, based in Stoke-on-Trent, UK.

The innovative machine, which is soon to undergo extensive production trials, has been developed as part of the FLEXIFORM Project. The project is funded by the European Commission and involves nine partners from five countries. The objective of FLEXIFORM is to develop and prove a new technology for pressure casting of ceramic tableware and sanitaryware shapes requiring multi-part moulds.

The four part mould assembly was produced by engineering company VJ Goodall Ltd from a novel mould material developed by another of the project's partners Portec AG. This exciting new mould material has a high compressive strength and dimension stability making it ideal for CNC machining parts directly from a CAD drawing.

Proving trials have been completed in Germany on a pressure casting machine designed specially for the FLEXIFORM project by equipment suppliers Lippert.

Commenting on its future development Graham Small, the project manager at CERAM explained; ¡°The machine will now undergo several months of production trials at Dudson Limited in Stoke-on-Trent, and from there it will be transferred to Sweden where a more complex coffee pot shape will be produced by another project partner iitala. Industrial trials to produce WC shapes using a mould of the same material are scheduled to commence in a French sanitaryware factory later in 2004.