Study of mould hardness for alpha set type resin bonded moulding sand system using Taguchi approach for metal casting applications

Abstract

Abstract. The quality of the castings are depended on many properties of sand mould like mould hardness, green compression strength, shear strength etc. and these properties in turn dependent on factors such as grain fineness number of sand, setting/curing time, amount of resin, amount of hardener, moisture content etc. Mould hardness is very important while transferring mould from moulding station to pouring station when the weight of the mould is above 100kg and may lead to defects. In the present work, an effort is made to study the mould hardness of a moulding sand specimen using Taguchi technique.L9 orthogonal array is used and experiments are conducted randomly. The main factors such as the amount of resin, amount of hardener and setting time were considered. Factors were selected based on Literature review and brainstorming session with foundries. The chemical (resin and hardener) used is alphas set type two part system. From experiments, it was observed that the Amount of resin and setting time are significant for mould hardness. Confirmation tests were conducted to validate the obtained results.

Experimental Investigation of the Influence of Sand and Binder Composition on the Mold Properties of Alkyd Type No-Bake Chemically Bonded Sand-Casting System

“…Casting is the most fundamental manufacturing method for producing metal engineering objects [1]. It contributes significantly to the development of modern equipment for power, communication, transportation, agro-allied, construction, space, agricultural, chemical, and petrochemical industries, and other sectors.…”

“…Sand casting is the most common type of casting in the world because of its costeffectiveness, versatility, and wide range of alloys. Sand casting is separated into green sand molding, chemicals and molding, dry sand molding, no-bake sand molding, and cold box molding based on the kind of sand and binding agents employed [1]. Among these, greensand molding is a versatile, quick, and inexpensive method of creating molds for high-quality ferrous and non-ferrous castings.…”

“…As a result, the impact of these key ingredients on the qualities of molding sand must be examined in order to determine the best compositional blend [4]. Deshpande Anand et al, [1] studied the mold hardness of a molding sand specimen using the Taguchi technique using an L9 orthogonal array and experiments were conducted randomly. The factors include the amount of resin, amount of hardener, and setting time were considered.…”

“…Most industries add resin, catalyst, and hardener to sand by trial and error, so moulds break at the start of the shift, and employees progressively raise the hardener and resin percentage. However, using too much hardener and resin will make shakeout difficult, and the gases released after pouring the molten metal would be confined due to the reduced permeability [1].…”

Comparison of the Properties of Alkali-Phenolic Binder in Terms of Selection of Molding Sand for Steel Castings

“…In [15], the authors present the results of the tests of the mechanical properties of molding sand bonded by Alphaset resin, proving its good quality. The authors of [2] present the analysis of various binding systems in terms of large-size castings, concluding that the development of optimal molding sands for the production of castings, taking into account the restrictive requirements for environmental protection, is a very current issue from the point of view of the structure of the European foundry industry.…”