This article was published in Die Casting Industry LINKS, June 2014.
For the vast majority of people who know anything about the process of sealing porosity in castings, known as vacuum impregnation, it typically conjures the image of a technology by which product is batch loaded into a series of large, multi-purpose tanks. Until recently (the past decade) this was not just a perception, but the reality. In general, the process was inefficient, bulky, and difficult to control, making it undesirable or impossible to introduce into a modern manufacturing environment. This created a distinct mindset among manufacturers that the process was capable of producing sporadic results, and was managed best by a small community of specialized impregnation service businesses. Few who rely on vacuum impregnation have ever wanted ownership of what was a bulky and cumbersome process.
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