I happened across this study underwritten by the US Department of Energy and found bits and pieces interesting. I have certainly not read it all or even scanned all of it. But, because Kelly and others here have done so much interesting lost foam work, I took a look at those pages and found some of the observations interesting especially concerning pressure casting factors, porosity as relates to casting strength, use of mullite sand, energy consumption and profit margins. Might be of interest to some to leaf through it and pick out little nuggets of interesting information. https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2013/11/f4/implementation_final.pdf "Since 1995 the U. S. Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Industrial Technologies Program (ITP) Metal Casting Portfolio has funded research and development in cooperation with the metal casting industry to reduce its energy consumption and improve productivity. In addition, ITP’s Technology Delivery subprogram provides a free energy evaluation service to the metal casters through its Industrial Assessment Centers (IACs) and a suite of free BestPractices software tools that focuses on implementing near-term energy-saving best practices." Denis
