NAME Pilot foundry plant for the development of new materials and foundry technologies in an industrial level.

The infrastructure has all the necessary means for the melting, casting and solidification of new alloys in test parts, demonstrators and prototypes of any alloy based on Fe, Al, Cu and/or Ni. The infrastructure provides three main types of service: I)DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION OF NEW ALLOYS ON A FE, AL, CU, NI AND/OR OTHER BASIS. New alloys are designed, prepared and validated by combining customer specifications, bibliographic study, results of thermochemical simulations (FactSage, Thermocalc, Dictra) and the know-how of the development team formed by engineers from AZTERLAN and TQC Technologies who have several joint publications and patents. The infrastructure has induction furnaces, electric furnaces, protective atmosphere furnaces of different capacities from 2 kg to 100 kg. For larger parts, a network of qualified suppliers is available. A state-of-the-art furnace is available with melting and casting in a controlled atmosphere and in a vacuum to avoid the oxidation of critical elements. II)DEVELOPMENT OF NEW FOUNDRY TECHNOLOGIES New foundry technologies are designed, developed and validated, acting from the improvement of the metal quality, to the improvement of the foundry mold, as well as in the production process, accelerating or slowing down the solidification speed in order to achieve the best structures and performance of the selected parts. Developments are also made in further heat treatments. The infrastructure has several furnaces and auxiliary casting and control equipment (chemical composition analysis, gas content in the liquid metal, evaluation of the quality of the liquid metal through thermal analysis: Thermolan®, Thermolan®-AL, multiple temperature recorders, dross test, vacuum density meter, etc.) that are adapted according to new requirements and developments. III)RAPID PROTOTYPING OF NEW COMPONENTS Rapid prototyping of parts is carried out starting from the 3D design of the part and supplying castings in an as-cast state or heat-treated and machined according to the customer's requirements. Initially the design of the filling and feeding systems is carried out, the sand or metallic mold is manufactured, the composition and quality of the metal is adjusted to the requirements, it is melted, flow into the molds, it is demolded. Quality controls are carried out both during the casting and on the finished parts, ensuring the customer's requirements. Finally, the finishing operations agreed with the client are carried out: shot blasting, heat treatment, painting and/or machining. The infrastructure has in collaboration with AZTERLAN an extensive laboratory for carrying out destructive and non-destructive tests on the manufactured parts: Cutting andpreparation of samples, optical and electronic microscopy, mechanical characterization tests, X-ray and Computed-Tomography inspection, penetrating liquids, ultrasounds, etc.