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Commercial Aerospace

Signicast investment castings offers aerospace manufacturers precise, high-strength components with exceptional durability and complex geometries, ensuring optimal performance and reliability in demanding flight conditions.

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Aerospace Leaders Choose Signicast To Help Achieve Key Goals

Complex Geometries

Investment casting enables the production of intricate and lightweight aerospace components, such as turbine blades and structural brackets, to meet stringent design requirements with high precision.

High-Temperature Resistance

The process allows for the use of advanced alloys that withstand extreme temperatures and stresses, ensuring durability and performance in critical engine and exhaust system components.

Superior Strength-to-Weight Ratio

Investment casting provides aerospace parts with an excellent strength-to-weight ratio, crucial for enhancing fuel efficiency and overall aircraft performance.

NADCAP, ITAR, AS9100, and NIST Compliance

Signicast's NADCAP, ITAR, AS9100, and NIST compliance assures aerospace partners that their investment castings meet the industry's highest standards for quality and safety, crucial for critical applications.

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Commercial Aerospace Applications

Investment casting is vital for producing components used in aerospace applications. Common applications include:

Auxiliary power units
Heat shields
Interior components
Airframe components
Hydraulic fluid system components
Landing and breaking components
Engine components
Fuel system components
Structural parts

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What Is the SOPHIA® Process?

SOPHIA® is a cutting-edge investment casting method that improves component geometry and mechanical properties through precise controlled cooling. Ideal for complex, lightweight parts in aerospace and defence, SOPHIA® produces a finer, denser microstructure for superior performance—and we are only 1 of 4 investment casting facilities in the world with SOPHIA® technology.

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SOPHIA process of a mold dropping into a liquid medium

A Computer-Controlled Process

Molten aluminium, heated to approximately 750 degrees celsius, is poured into a hot shell before being transferred to the SOPHIA® chamber. The mould is then lowered into a cooling medium where a computer-controlled process, tailored to the component's geometry, ensures controlled and accelerated solidification.

Images of part density with different investment casting processes

Enhanced Mechanical Properties

The SOPHIA® process produces a finer and denser microstructure, resulting in superior mechanical properties with reduced dependence on wall thickness. Compared to conventional investment casting, SOPHIA® castings show significant enhancements in fatigue life.

SOPHIA process of the molten metal hardening

Aluminum Investment Casting

The SOPHIA® process enhances aluminium investment casting for high-strength aerospace and specialised applications. It supports minimum wall thicknesses (1.5-2 mm), excellent castability, design flexibility, and improved weldability, corrosion resistance, and pressure tightness, outperforming conventional casting methods with materials like A357 (AlSi7Mg0.6) and A356 (AlSi7Mg0.3).