Sand casting is a sand mold made of molding sand made by mixing foundry sand and binder, through molten metal, and solidification. It is a casting technology that makes the maximum shape, and it is the most applied process or process type in the manuf...
Sand casting is a sand mold made of molding sand made by mixing foundry sand and binder, through molten metal, and solidification. It is a casting technology that makes the maximum shape, and it is the most applied process or process type in the manufacturing Casting products. Sand casting has advantages such as low price of raw-material and processing cost, high production growth, and good performance in mass production. Depending on manufacturing sand Casting products, the mold and core have a great influence on the quality of Castings and important role for manufacturing Casting products.
Molding sand mixed with foundry sand and binder has required proper mold strength, permeability, thermal stability, refractoriness, flowability, produced good casting finish, collapsibility, Is reusable, offer ease of sand preparation and control, and Removes heat from the cooling casting are required. These properties are determined by the type and characteristics of the used foundry sand and binder. In general, the amount of binder used in molding sand is 1 to 3% of the weight of the foundry sand, and the characteristics of the mold and core are mainly determined by the characteristics of the molding sand. It is decided. Therefore, in sand casting, it is very important to select a foundry sand suitable for manufacturing a casting product.
Conventionally, natural silica sand has been commonly used as foundry sand in sand casting, but silica sand is an aggregate that is prone to mechanical crushing, and deterioration of the atmospheric environment in the casting factory atmosphere environmental degradation and increase in industrial waste, veining defect due to high coefficient of expansion, sand burn on and fusion due to low refractoriness. There is a disadvantage that defects occur.
Chromite sand was used to solve the sand burn-in defect caused by the lack of thermal properties of silica sand, but aggregate degradation due to repeated use, problems with system sand mixing, difficulty in separation and removal, There are disadvantages such as increased load during molding due to high density and waste containing chromium. Recently, industrial waste reduction and atmospheric environmental improvement have been highlighted as important tasks in the casting industry. In order to solve problems that occur when using conventional foundry sand and improve the atmospheric environment of casting factories, various imported artificial sands that can be applied as substitutes for natural sand have been introduced in Korea.
Artificial sands can be classified into artificial sand manufactured by the electric arc atomization or gas flame atomization, artificial sand manufactured by the spray drying & sintering process, artificial sand manufactured by the sintering & crushing process and exhibit different physical properties depending on the type of raw-minerals and manufacturing method.
The quality of a casting is mainly determined in the process of solidification and cooling of molten metal, and if the mold is damaged due to insufficient mold strength, the casting may be discarded due to poor shape. When a casting is manufactured by sand casting, the mold strength, shrinkage of the mold, type of foundry sand and binder affect the amount of hot crack defects and seizure defects on the surface of the product. And, through waste sand recycling, foundry sand that does not cause crushing even after repeated use is required as an important aggregate
Thermal durability is also important additionally, and foundry sand having characteristics of returning to sand particles without forming a fused compound by melting or sintering even after repeated use is required. That is, it is possible to manufacture castings of excellent quality without casting defects, and it is required to select molding sand having excellent durability even after repeated use through waste sand mechanical recycling.
In particular, in the selection of artificial sand for manufacturing heavy cast steel products, mold strength, crushing resistance during mechanical recycling, waste sand recycling recovery rate, longevity at high temperature heat resistance and refractoriness are important as maintained, and it is very important to understand the characteristics of natural sand and artificial sand manufactured by different manufacturing methods. However, there is a lack of study summarized documents or domestic studies summarizing the characteristics of various artificial sand.
In this study, comparative evaluation tests were conducted on the physical properties of various foundry sands, mold strength, physical durability, thermal durability, and casting test pieces. When comprehensively considering the actual amount of molding sand used according to density, the mold strength according to the shape of sand, the physical and thermal durability of foundry sand, and the heat resistance characteristics of foundry sand, ‘Molten artificial sand A1’ or ‘Molten artificial sand B’ is judged to be the most suitable spherical artificial sand for casting of heavy steel castings.
Meanwhile, as foundry sand is an important base material for sand casting, a stable supply and demand is very important. However, most of the molding sand used in the domestic casting industry relies on imports, and in the case of spherical artificial sand, there is no localization development and commercial production by domestic companies, so all of them are dependent on imports.
Recently, in the case of Korea, the casting industry discharges hazardous substances such as waste gas, waste water, waste dust, and industrial waste generated during the production process of castings. Due to this, the poor working environment has become a target to be avoided and is urgently task to be solved, and location difficulties such as relocation requests and occupancy restrictions due to dust and stink generated from the foundry are occurring. In order to solve these challenges, it is necessary to replace natural sand with artificial sand, and to supply and spread artificial sand to domestic casting companies, the need to develop cheaper domestic artificial sand compared to imported artificial sand is emerging.
Therefore, research and commercial production of the localization of spherical artificial sand are needed to secure the stability of supply and demand of foundry sand and to accelerate its supply and spread. However, there is no domestic research on the localization of spherical artificial sand.
In this study, domestic minerals such as kaolin, pyrophyllite, pottery stone, and feldspar and imported bauxite were used as raw materials for the electric arc atomization process. To prepare a prototype artificial sand, evaluate the properties of imported artificial sand, mold strength test, physical durability test, thermal durability test, A sand burn-in test piece casting test was conducted and comparative evaluation was conducted.
As a result, the spheroidicity, mold strength, crushing resistance, refractoriness, and sintering temperature of prototype artificial sand manufactured by the arc atomization method using bauxite and domestic pyrophyllite as raw materials were improved. Explosion heat resistance, and sand burn in defect rate are superior to commercial 'sintered artificial sand', and commercial 'molten artificial sand' A1 and B showed the same level.