Investigating the shear and compressive behaviour of the pine wood ash casting sand

Abstract

The quality of sand casted products is determined by the type of sand used and the composition of the sand mould with moisture content and binders. The most commonly used binder material used in the foundry industry is bentonite, the price of which is ever-increasing. This study aims to find specific foundry sand and a binder composition formula i.e. a mixture of bentonite and naturally occurring pine wood ash, to get better strength properties and economical sand. The locally available natural sand of Nainital hill district is used with a combination of pinewood ash working as an additive as well as a binder. Different combinations of natural sand, pinewood ash and binder were tested for shear and compressive strength with a constant moisture content of 15 wt% and 100gm base sand. Three tests were conducted for each observation and average of the three resulted in the final reading. This was done to reduce the possibility of any error. The highest shear strength obtained was 0.0106 N/mm2 at 6% binder and 16.66% pine wood ash with a G.F.N. of 42.43. The highest compressive strength obtained was 0.0232 N/mm2 at 4% binder and 20% pine wood ash with a G.F.N. of 43.49.