As 3D-printed (3DP) patterns are solid and durable, they can be used to create thin wall castings, which is complicated with wax patterns because of the wax’s fragility and high shrinkage ratio. According to this study’s experiment results, polylactic acid (PLA), polyvinyl butyral (PVB), and castable wax (CW) are suitable materials for preparing investment casting (IC) cavities. The results indicate that the casting product with the highest-quality surface is obtained using a cavity prepared using a CW-printed pattern. PLA- and PVB-printed patterns provide a good surface finish for casted products. In addition, the roughness of both the printed and casted surfaces increases as the printing layer height increases. The roughness of the casted surface varies from 2.25 μm to 29.17 μm. This investigation also considers the correlation between the infill ratio and mechanical properties of PLA-printed patterns. An increase in the infill ratios from 0% to 100% leads to a significant increase in the tensile properties of the PLA-printed pattern. The obtained results can be practically used.

The investment casting (IC) process is a technique used to produce high-precision metal castings, including complex shapes and metals that are difficult to cast using conventional methods. Typically, the process begins by creating a wax pattern from a mold in the initial steps. The molds used for IC are fabricated using conventional machining techniques. However, this mold preparation approach can be challenging when it comes to fabricating complex shapes and thin walls, particularly in small-batch production scenarios. To overcome this limitation, this study explores a flexible design approach that utilizes three-dimensional printing (3DP) to fabricate IC molds. The key advantage of this approach is the combination of the flexible design mold and the surface roughness (SR) of the casted parts. The experimental results demonstrate that the SR of the casted products fabricated using the 3DP mold is comparable to that obtained from the conventional mold-making process. These findings provide an alternative strategy for preparing IC molds with high flexibility, which can accommodate various scales of production. The 3DP-based approach offers a more adaptable solution compared to conventional machining methods, particularly for complex geometries and small-batch manufacturing.

Wire electrical discharge machining (WEDM) is a standard micro-manufacturing technology. In WEDM, surface roughness (SR), deviation dimension (DD), and machining time (MT) are critical requirements that impact machining quality and are affected by various input parameters. The workpiece often performs multiple machining steps (roughing, semi-finishing, and finishing) to achieve high accuracy. Each machining step directly affects the accuracy and machining time, and the preceding machining step influences the subsequent machining step parameters. Many input control parameters regulate WEDM’s performance. Thus, optimizing process control parameters at each step is essential to achieve optimal results. This study investigates the influence of input parameters, including pulse on time (Ton), pulse off time (Toff), and servo voltage (SV), on SR, DD, and MT when machining AISI D2 mold steel through rough, semi-finish, and finish cutting. Taguchi and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) are applied to analyze and optimize this WEDM process. The results display that the optimal surface roughness values for rough, semi-finish, and finish-cut stages are 2.03 µm, 1.77 µm, and 0.57 µm, corresponding to the parameter set of Ton = 6 μs, Toff = 10 μs, and SV = 30 V; Ton = 3 μs, Toff = 15 μs, and SV = 60 V; and Ton = 21 μs, Toff = 45 μs, and SV = 60 V, respectively. In addition, in the finish-cut stage, the parameters for optimal DD of 0.001 mm (0.04%) are Ton = 3 μs, Toff = 15 μs, and SV = 40 V. In contrast, those values for optimal MT of 218 s are Ton = 3 μs, Toff = 30 μs, and SV = 40 V. All optimal input values are confirmed by the manufacturing mold and die parts.