Inventors: LaRoche, Jr., E. Allen;
Assignee: Lanxide Technology Company, LP (Newark, DE)
Primary Examiner: Cintins; Ivars
Assistant Examiner:
Attorney, Agent or Firm: Mortenson; Mark G., McShane; William E.
A method of producing shaped, self-supporting ceramic bodies includes preparing a mold by applying a permeable, conformable material to a shape-defining surface of an expendable pattern. The permeable, conformable material, when set or stable, provides a mold with a shaped surface which is defined by, and is therefore substantially congruent to, the shape-defining surface. Upon heating, the material of the expendable pattern combusts or volatilizes and thus establishes the shaped cavity mold. A molten parent metal is then oxidized with a vapor-phase oxidant in such a manner as to form a ceramic body which grows into the mold cavity, and is shaped by it. The ceramic body is recovered from the mold having a shaped surface replicating the shape-defining surface of the expendable pattern. |
Manufacturing Materials 
