Casting Industry Research Articles

Arsenic immobilization in anaerobic soils by the application of by-product iron materials obtained from the casting industry

ABSTRACT Reducing the arsenic (As) concentration in rice grains is of great interest from a human health perspective. Iron (Fe) materials immobilize As in soils, thereby effectively reducing the As concentration in rice grains. We investigated the effect of by-product Fe materials obtained from the casting industry on the As mobility in two soils (soil A and soil B) by a long-term (approximately 100 days) flooded soil incubation experiment. The examined Fe materials were spent steel shot (SSS), fine spent casting sand (SCS) containing steel shot, and two kinds of residual Fe materials (RIMs) from steel shot production. Commercial Fe materials used to immobilize As (zero-valent Fe and ferrihydrite) were tested for comparison. The dissolved As in soil solution of controls for soil A and soil B reached approximately 100 and 800 μg L‒1, respectively. The effect on As immobilization of all the by-product Fe materials increased with time and was comparable to or greater than that of commercial ferrihydrite, except for SCS. The additions of SSS and RIMs decreased by more than 90% of the dissolved As in soil A and decreased by more than 50% in soil B after 100 days incubation. Overall, the effect of the by-product Fe materials on the solubility of silicon and phosphorus was much less than that of the commercial Fe materials. Considering the cost advantage over commercial Fe materials, the Fe materials obtained from the casting industry as by-products are promising amendments for the immobilization of As in paddy soils.

Methodology for optimization of pouring variables using bottom pour for low masses of SS304 (

ABSTRACTBottom pour ladles with stopper rod systems are commonly used in the metal casting industry. However, stopper rod bottom-pouring systems have not yet been developed for the lower thermal masses of alloys typically used in the investment casting industry. Large thermal masses used with bottom pour systems are typically limited for ladles larger than 700 kg and to certain alloys with higher fluidity and longer solidification time like cast iron, aluminum alloys etc. In this study, bottom pour ladle designs and low thermal mass refractory systems have been developed and evaluated in production investment foundry trials with 300 kg pouring ladle. The ladles system and pouring practices used will be described along with the results from the pouring trials for SS304 that represents typical alloys used in Investment casting industries. Optimization of the variables used in an experimentation using Genetic algorithm is also explained.

Laser metal deposition technique: sustainability and environmental impact

Additive manufacturing (AM) is a term used in describing a set of manufacturing techniques that employs layer upon layer production of parts and components through the application of 3D model data and inputs of raw material. The technology easily comes to mind in the recent times as processing complexities during production is partly responsible for the high cost of parts and components. Industries such as the heavy machinery consumers, aerospace and casting industry now employs the technology as a way of prolonging service of faulty parts through repair and remanufacturing technology. AM has the tendency to change many production set ups through reduction in cost of production, material wastage, energy usage, component lead time etc. AM technologies also have their own challenges despite numerous advantages associated with them. This paper looks at some of the laser metal deposition techniques, their sustainability and environmental impact.

Using Lean Six Sigma methodologies to improve operational performance in foundries

Metal casting, one of the oldest manufacturing processes, is the introduction of a molten metal into a mould where after solidification, the metal takes on the shape of the moulded cavity. The metal casting industry is a competitive, always evolving industry. While practices typically remain the same, the market fluctuates year to year. This forces companies and foundries to consistently adapt to an ever changing demand and improve their processes. To do so, foundries need to eliminate wastes in their process and ensure they produce highest quality castings. In this paper, we discuss an initiative for Lean Six Sigma process improvement in casting industry. A framework for selecting the proper problem solving methodology is presented. Several process improvement projects were identified and five projects were selected. Lean and Six Sigma problem solving methods were used.

Using Lean Six Sigma methodologies to improve operational performance in foundries

Metal casting, one of the oldest manufacturing processes, is the introduction of a molten metal into a mould where after solidification, the metal takes on the shape of the moulded cavity. The metal casting industry is a competitive, always evolving industry. While practices typically remain the same, the market fluctuates year to year. This forces companies and foundries to consistently adapt to an ever changing demand and improve their processes. To do so, foundries need to eliminate wastes in their process and ensure they produce highest quality castings. In this paper, we discuss an initiative for Lean Six Sigma process improvement in casting industry. A framework for selecting the proper problem solving methodology is presented. Several process improvement projects were identified and five projects were selected. Lean and Six Sigma problem solving methods were used.

Decision support systems in the metal casting industry: An academic review of research articles

This article offers a complete review of the research articles that are related to the application of decision support and intelligent system with specific reference to metal/dry casting. Data was obtained from 89 articles that were published from 2000 to 2015 in 47 journals. The articles are categorized based upon three different categories based on numbers of impressions, material poured and pressureapplication. They are further classified into 10 subsections. A widespread list of journal articles is identified in this present study that provides relevant information/references for both practitioners and researchers on the application of decision support and intelligent systems to various stages of metal/die casting. In light of the developed classification framework, we identify gaps in extending the use of the decision support and artificial intelligent systems in the industry and suggest potential and applicable research areas for further consideration in this subject area.

Utilizing Industry-oriented Finite Element Codes in the Design of Virtual Steel Mill Concept

Standard industry-oriented finite element codes offer a great degree of versatility and computational efficiency. These software tools in hands of control process engineers help to establish new concepts of control strategies, leading to an effective or autonomous operation. However, their use in continuous casting industry is usually limited to isolated case studies due to missing communication layer interfaces and data processing tools within steel mill infrastructure. Systematic breaking of these barriers would lead to novel concepts of distributed parameter system identification and control system design using off-line or co-simulation control schemes. This marks the way towards virtual technological nodes as a part of a more general concept of virtual steel mill with continuous casting machine at its very heart.

Reliability analysis of hanger shot blast KAZO machine in foundry plant

In a metal casting industry, Hanger Shot Blast KAZO machine plays a very vital role for blasting. The downtime equipment data for the last five years, 2013 to 2017, shows that the hanger shot blast KAZO is the machine which frequently encounters downtime with the number of 503,75 hours. As the only blasting machine with 2 (two) tons of load capacity, the issues of hanger shot blast KAZO affect to the targeted production process of company. Moreover, it increases risk of safety for the workers surround the machine. The purpose of this current research is to find out the reliability value of the item/ component of hover shot blast KAZO machine using Reliability Analysis method. The malfunction of its component is reviewed by FMEA (Failure Mode and Effect Analysis). While the risk assessment is obtained from RPN (Risk Priority Number) calculation - MTTF value and reliability value R(t). The result of this current study found that there are 21 malfunctions on hanger shot blast KAZO machine. MTTF analysis shows the highest MTTF value is 9195,324 hours for bearing impeller component and the lowest is 3498,997 hours for motor components. Meanwhile, reliability analysis shows that the largest reliability value with 0.999915 is encountered by motor contactor of crane, while with a value of 0.26385, hanger rotator motor contactor component encountered the lowest reliability value.

Design And Simulation Of LM 25 Sand Casting For Defect Minimization

The most critical step in casting process is the solidification of molten metal in prepared mould cavity, because this is time where the defects like volumetric shrinkage, porosity, blowholes occurs and affects the quality of casting. These defects come into picture when the part is completely manufactured and went for testing. In traditional casting process to overcome these defects, again we have to redesign feeder, gating system, etc, and repeat the casting, so this will directly affect the rate of production. If these defects can be address before casting then it will really help casting industry to improve their production rate and revenue. These problems can be address using smart methoding and advance simulation using casting software. In this paper the study has been made to improve design and manufacture a defect free casting in particular volumetric shrinkage defect and yield. The part taken for study is Contact wheel from one of casting company in Aurangabad, Maharashtra. The company suffers from casting defects like shrinkage, blowhole and pinhole. Casting solidification is quickly simulated to view the progress of cooling from casting surface to interior, and to predict the location of shrinkage defects such as porosity and cracks .This helps in verifying and optimizing the design of feeders, which can be verified by advanced simulation. This simulation result was compared with the experimental trial and the comparison result was found to be good.

Variation of solid fraction with cold flow properties of biodiesel produced from waste frying oil

Biodiesel sample utilized in the study was produced from waste frying oil by a base catalyzed one step transesterification reaction. The feedstock oil and the samples produced were tested in accordance with the standards designated by European Committee for Standardization and also by American Society for Testing and Materials. Cold Flow Properties (CFP), namely Cloud Point (CP), Cold Filter Plugging Point (CFPP) and Pour Point (PP) were determined. Since the three CFP should occur at specific solid fractions during freezing, the objective was to examine in details the whole solidification history to estimate the corresponding solid fractions at these temperatures. The so-called computer-aided cooling curve analysis employed in metal casting industry was modified and applied to the current biodiesel sample. Indications of CP, CFPP and PP were noted as slope changes on the cooling curve and also on its first derivative curve. The Newtonian thermal analysis was utilized to estimate the solid fractions in the solid-liquid mixture at CP, CFPP and PP during solidification. The fraction of the solidified biodiesel in the mixture jumped from 0.18 to 0.39 when the CFPP temperature was reached. The visual observations were in agreement with the calculations.

Recycle option for metallurgical by-product (Spent Foundry Sand) in green concrete for sustainable construction

Reuse of waste materials as construction material is very much essential to achieve sustainable construction. Utilization of waste materials as construction material not only help in protection of environment but also result in monetary savings. Spent Foundry Sand (SFS) is the waste material generated by metal casting industry. This paper presents study on economic and environmental benefits of recycling of SFS in concrete as sand replacement. Strength and durability properties of green concrete made with SFS as sand replacement are also presented. Natural sand in concrete was replaced with SFS at 0, 5, 10, 15 and 20% replacement levels by weight. To assess the performance of green concrete made with SFS, compressive strength, splitting tensile strength, deicing salt resistance and chloride permeability tests were performed. At age of 28 days, green concrete mixtures containing SFS as sand replacement displayed up to 26% and 12.87% improvement in compressive strength and splitting tensile strength over that of control concrete, respectively. Similarly, concrete mixtures made with SFS exhibited 7.2–17.7% lower chloride ion penetration and 6.6–26.42% improvement in salt scaling resistance on use of SFS. The green concrete mixtures showed very slight scaling after 50 cycles of freezing and thawing in the presence of deicing salt compared to slight to moderate scaling shown by control concrete. The incorporation of up to 20% SFS as sand replacement results improvement in strength and durability properties of green concrete over those of control concrete. Green concrete made with SFS is economical and reduces negative impact on environment by reducing CO2 emissions.

STRUKTUR MIKRO DAN SIFAT MEKANIS ALUMINIUM (Al-Si) PADA PROSES PENGECORAN MENGGUNAKAN CETAKAN LOGAM, CETAKAN PASIR DAN CETAKAN CASTABLE

Abstract: Aluminum foundry is one of the business sectors that to much in demand by the public, ranging from small scale to large scale . Through remelting process, some small-scale aluminum casting industry, using raw materials of used aluminum as the main raw material. Some of the cast products are required to have good quality to comply with quality standards on its use. This study aims to look at the difference in quality of cast aluminum (Al-Si) using three types of mold, the metal mold, sand mold, and the mold castable by testing the mechanical properties of materials that impact and Brinell hardness testing. The method used was experimental or trial. The results obtained are the result cast using a metal mold has a hardness value of the highest of 63 HBN, with a value of impact 37

Qualification of Chemically Bonded Sand Systems Using a Casting Trial for Quantifying Interfacial Defects

Chemically bonded sand cores and molds are an important part of metal casting technology and their interaction with metal (mold–metal interface) is of great interest. Currently, the metal casting industry places a strong emphasis on near-net-shape and thin wall castings, while simultaneously maintaining increasingly stringent dimensional reproducibility requirements. To efficiently and cost effectively accomplish this task, it becomes crucial to ensure or “qualify” high-quality performance at the mold–metal interface. The thermal distortion test (TDT) was used in published American Foundry Society (AFS) studies as a laboratory technique to determine the presence of anomalies and for measuring distortions in chemically bonded sand binder systems. However, these laboratory tests focus purely on sand binder system behavior, without considering the effects of actual mold–metal interfaces. While the TDT provides valuable insight, it is unable to ensure castings will be free (or contain an acceptable amount) of specific defects. Therefore, to maximize casting quality and efficiency, it becomes imperative to incorporate casting trials into a foundry’s quality control system. This will allow the occurrence of potential casting defects to be observed at the mold–metal interface. This paper presents a casting trial technique that provides three specific benefits to foundry quality control systems. First, these trials will qualify sand binder systems against a specific casting surface defect(s), such as surface roughness, veins, penetration, cuts, washes, and erosion. Second, these casting trials are implemented under constant casting, mold, process, and design parameters. This allows the casting trial(s) to provide diagnostic information (i.e., if a specific defect occurs when using a qualified sand binder system, the cause cannot be related to the sand binder system). Third, the casting trial technique provides new opportunities for data analysis and deeper system understanding. Specifically, results in this paper identify the possibility of a potential relation between TDT data (e.g., anomalies and distortions) and actual casting trial data (e.g., defects).

Environmental Protection Versus Foundry Engineering Practice

Abstract • Theory and practice of environmental protection in the case of foundries in Europe and Asia • Experience resulting from the cooperation with the foundries in a few European countries, China and India • Phenomena and factors affecting the pollution of the natural environment and the implementation of measures aiming at the environmental protection. Every specialist dealing with foundry processes and their impact on environmental pollution must have encountered in their professional careers numerous situations in which the theory of environmental protection confronts the stark reality. The discrepancy between theory and practice can particularly be noticed in foundry engineering in developing countries where the contrasts between different countries and casting plants are extremely striking. The comparison of working conditions in European and Asian foundries provides a vast scope for further observations and analyses. Environmental protection seems not only a concern of manufacturers of castings, but also of their customers whose opinion exerts a significant influence on both the acceptability of working conditions and on the approach to environmental pollution adopted in metal casting industry. The article presents a number of examples of various outlooks on environmental issues in foundries manufacturing a wide range of cast steel and cast iron castings, where different technologies and production processes are applied.

Sustainable alkali activated materials: Precursor and activator derived from industrial wastes

The aim of the present paper is to analyse the potential application of a solution used to wash moulds from the aluminium casting industry as an alkali activator, for inclusion in the production of alkaline cement. To evaluate the effectiveness of this cleaning solution (CS), two different by-products/wastes were considered as a precursor: fly ash type F (FA) and glass powder (GP) from the production of optical lenses. An 8 molar sodium hydroxide commercial solution was used to establish threshold values for the CS activator. Several mixtures were prepared and cured for 20 h, at 85 °C, at high humidity (≥90%). Mechanical behaviour was assessed by uniaxial compression strength tests. The reaction rate was determined by calorimetry, and the resulting reaction products were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), electron microscopy (SEM/EDX) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR-MAS). The results show that the cleaning solution has a high potential to be used as an activator in the manufacturing of alkali activated cement, especially due to its tetrahedral aluminium content, which is particularly effective for the activation of low-Al raw materials, since it acts simultaneously as a cheap aluminium source.

Application of the lattice Boltzmann method for simulation of the mold filling process in the casting industry

The aim of this work is the development of the lattice Boltzmann model for simulation of the mold filling process. The authors present a simplified approach to the modeling of liquid metal-gas flows with particular emphasis on the interactions between these phases. The boundary condition for momentum transfer of the moving free surface to the gaseous phase is shown. Simultaneously, the method for modeling influence of gas back pressure on a position and shape of the interfacial boundary is explained in details. The problem of the lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) stability is also analyzed. Since large differences in viscosity of both fluids are a source of the model instability, the so-called fractional step (FS) method allowing to improve the computation stability is applied. The presented solution is verified on the bases of the available reference data and the results of experiments. It is shown that the model describes properly such effects as: gas bubbles formation and air back pressure, accompanying liquid-gas flows in the casting mold. At the same time the proposed approach is easy to be implemented and characterized by a lower demand of operating memory as compared to typical LBM models of two-phase flows.

Optimization of casting process through reliability approach

PurposeThe quality of production is an essential factor for the performance measure of a system; a casting process is the same section. It is a type of metal-forming practice in which the required shape of metal is acquired by pouring molten metal into the mold cavity and allowing it to solidify. Casting is done to provide strength and rigidity to the parts of a system for bearing mechanical impacts. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the various aspects which affect the casting process in the foundry industry, in order to optimize the quality of casting, with the assumption that sufficient repair facility is always available.Design/methodology/approachThe considered casting system can have many defects such as the mold shift defect, blowhole defect, defect of shrinkage and porosity, defect of inclusion, defect of cold shut and much more. The studied system can be in three states during the process, namely, good state, failed state and degraded state. The system can repair after minor failures as well as a major failure. The average failure rates of various defects of the system considered as constant and repairs follow the general time distribution. The system is analyzed with the help of the supplementary variable technique and the Laplace transformation for evaluating its various performance measures in order to improve its performance/production.FindingsThis work provides a strong understanding of the casting industry, that which failure affects the production of casting and how much. For better understanding, the results have been demonstrated with the help of graphs.Originality/valueIn the present paper, a mathematical model based on the casting process in manufacturing industry has been developed.

A Combined Numerical–Experimental Approach to Quantify the Thermal Contraction of A356 During Solidification

A process for generating thermal contraction coefficients for use in the solidification modeling of aluminum castings is presented. Sequentially coupled thermal-stress modeling is used in conjunction with experimentation to empirically generate the thermal contraction coefficients for a strontium-modified A356 alloy. The impact of cooling curve analysis on the modeling procedure is studied. Model results are in good agreement with experimental findings, indicating a sound methodology for quantifying the thermal contraction. The technique can be applied to other commercially relevant aluminum alloys, increasing the utility of solidification modeling in the casting industry.

Elasticity of Moulding Sands – a Method of Reducing Core Cracking

Abstract This paper focuses on mechanical properties of self hardening moulding sands with furfuryl and alkyd binders. Elasticity as a new parameter of moulding sands is investigated. With the use of presented testing equipment, it is possible to determine force kinetics and deformation of moulding sand in real time. The need for this kind of study comes from the modern casting industry. New foundries can be characterized with high intensity of production which is correlated with high level of mechanization and automatization of foundry processes. The increasingly common use of manipulators in production of moulds and cores can lead to generation of new types of flaws, caused by breakage in moulds and cores which could occur during mould assembly. Hence it is required that moulds and cores have high resistance to those kinds of factors, attributing it with the phenomenon of elasticity. The article describes the theoretical basis of this property, presents methods of measuring and continues earlier research.

Ecofriendly flexible pavement incorporating waste product from metal casting industries and PET bottles

Ecofriendly flexible pavement incorporating waste product from metal casting industries and PET bottles