The paper presents the results of research on the impact of impurities in the feed ingots (master heat) on the precipitation of impurities in

the ATD thermal analysis probe castings. This impurities occur mostly inside shrinkage cavities and in interdendritic space. Additionally,

insufficient filtration of liquid alloy during pouring promotes the transfer of impurities into the casting. The technology of melting

superalloys in vacuum furnace prevents the removal of slag from the surface of molten metal. Because of that, the effective method of

quality assessment of feed ingots in order to evaluate the existence of impurities is needed. The effectiveness of ATD analysis in

evaluation of purity of feed ingots was researched. In addition the similarities of non-metallic inclusions in feed ingots and in castings

were observed.

The paper presents the results of evaluation of the metallurgical quality of master heat ingots and of the identification of non-metallic inclusions (oxides of Al., Zr, Hf, Cr, etc.), which have been found in the shrinkage cavities formed in these ingots. The inclusions penetrate into the liquid alloy, and on pouring of mould are transferred to the casting, especially when the filtering system is not sufficiently effective. The specific nature of the melting process of nickel and cobalt alloys, carried out in vacuum induction furnaces, excludes the possibility of alloy refining and slag removal from the melt surface. Therefore, to improve the quality of castings (parts of aircraft engines), it is so important to evaluate the quality of ingots before charging them into the crucible of an induction furnace. It has been proved that one of the methods for rapid quality evaluation is an ATD analysis of the sample solidification process, where samples are taken from different areas of the master heat ingot. The evaluation is based on a set of parameters plotted on the graph of the dT/dt derivative curve during the last stage of the solidification process in a range from TEut to Tsol.