Low pressure casting and 3D sand printing allows thin-wall, lightweight complex designs to become reality with feature and part consolidations and tighter dimensional tolerances and accuracy. In the case of an upper drive housing on a marine propulsion unit produced by Tooling & Equipment International (TEI, Livonia, Michigan), the tooling-less precision sand process offered tremendous design and rigging freedom.

The design featured a large, complex, one-piece core comprising the gear box cavity, cooling water passages, and water flow path. The final design achieved thin walls, excellent dimensional accuracy and reproducibility, as well as desired soundness and quality validated by CT scan.

Click here to read the rest of the column in the July/August 2022 digital edition of Casting Source.