Barron Industries: Delivering Award-Winning Aluminum Investment Casting for the Defense Industry

The defense industry needs strength and durable parts for  nearly every application, which is why all manufactured components must comply with strict regulations. For example, military components must be able to withstand harsh environments, provide superior corrosion resistance, and have lightweight properties. And that’s why the defense industry relies on aluminum castings.

Why Investment Casting?

The investment casting process involves the use of molds and molten metals to cast parts, components, and assemblies. Materials that are typically used in the casting process include stainless steel and aluminum.

The military sector relies on investment casting because this process can create complex parts that are near net-shape, which means that the component is so close to its finished shape that it may require little or no additional surface treatment. Additionally, investment casting offers exceptional repeatability. In other words, investment casting is great for consistently creating components with high dimensional accuracy.

And that’s not the only advantage of investment casting.

Advantages

We mentioned earlier that investment casting is great for high-volume productions. Hundreds of components can be produced while still maintaining high dimensional accuracy. Additional benefits of military investment casting include:

• Lightweight: Defense industry investment castings must be lightweight, especially for aircraft components. Investment casting manufacturers understand this need, which is why aluminum is the most common material used in military investment casting.
• Strength & Resistance: Although aluminum on its own doesn’t have high tensile strength, it can be alloyed with other materials to increase strength. Thus, creating lightweight components (fuselages, landing gear, armor structures, etc.) that are strong and resistant to corrosion, harsh elements, and extreme temperatures.
• Better Value for Your Money: When compared to other materials, like titanium, aluminum is more cost-effective. 

In addition to creating precision components, investment casting can also be used to make large assemblies, including helicopters, fighter aircrafts, infantry fighter vehicles, and offshore patrol vehicles.

Getting Defense Industry Investment Castings

Barron Industries offers award-winning aluminum castings for the defense industry. We use AS9100-certified quality systems and NADCAP-certified non-destructive testing to ensure every part meets safety-critical quality requirements. Our technical expertise combined with our advanced technologies allows us to offer rapid prototype castings for certain application designs. We also help defense clients even further by offering a faster and more effective investment casting method utilizing additive manufacturing for 3D printing casting patterns for complex components and sub-assemblies.

Read more about how we’ve helped defense clients in the past here.

High-Quality Aluminum Castings from Barron Industries

Barron Industries is proud to be an industry leader for military investment casting. We have provided superior casting solutions for over 35 years, and have worked with some of the biggest defense companies, including Lockheed Martin, Oshkosh, General Dynamics, BAE Systems , and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems.

If you have questions about our process or would like to request a quote, please contact us today.