Comparative experimental study of sand and binder for flowability and casting mold quality

A good sand mold is an indispensable prerequisite to obtaining a good metal casting. Although sand casting is one of the oldest metal forming technique known to humans, it still has a lot to discover. In a bid to meet the ever-growing demand for quality, economics and increasing environmental restrictions, research is still ongoing to optimize for example the process of making the sand mold. This paper presents a comparative study of six different foundry sands for flowability using simple inexpensive apparatus and some quality parameters achieved by these sands when used with three different types of binder, two organic and one inorganic. The study aims to facilitate the choice of mold materials with a more extensive outlook into their characteristics through a serious of sand and mold tests. A good comparison of already existing materials provides a good reference point when novel materials are investigated. All the sands exhibited 'good' flow property according to the simple flowability tests done. However, not the same consensus for flowability rank is reached by all the flow tests. The mold quality tests reveal the strength, loss on ignition and permeability values achieved with each of the binder and sand combination which can also be used in mold material selection.

(c) 2021 The Society of Powder Technology Japan. Published by Elsevier B.V. and The Society of Powder Technology Japan. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/).