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SAND CASTING
Sand casting, also known as sand molded casting, is a metal casting process
characterized by using sand as the mold material. The term "sand casting" can also
refer to an object produced via the sand casting process. Sand castings are
produced in specialized factories called foundries. Over 70% of all metal castings
are produced via a sand casting process.

The terminologies used in this technique are listed below:

Cope: The top half of a horizontally parted mold.

Core: The part of a mold used in the casting process that forms the internal shapes
of a casting.

Crucible Furnace: A furnace that melts metals in a refractory crucible. The

furnace is typically fueled with coke, oil, gas or electricity.

Cupola Furnace: The traditional furnace used for melting metal. The furnace is
typically fueled with coke.

Direct-Arc Furnace: An electric arc furnace in which the metal being melted is
one of the poles.

Draft: Taper on the vertical sides of a pattern or core box that permits the core or
pattern to be removed without distorting or tearing of the sand.

Drag: The bottom half of a horizontally parted mold.

Flash: A thin section of metal formed at the mold, core, and die joint or parting in
a casting. Flash usually forms when the cope and drag do not match completely or
when the core and the core print do not match.

Gas Porosity: A condition in a casting that occurs when gas is trapped in molten
metal or as a result of mold gasses that evolved when the casting was poured.

Gating Systems: The channel(s) that allow the molten metal to enter the mold
cavity.

Green Sand: Moist sand that is bounded by a mixture that contains silica,
bentonite clay, carbonaceous material, and water.
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Ladle: The name for a variety of receptacles used to move and pour molten metal
during the casting process.

Lining: The refractory layer of firebrick, clay, sand or other materials that coat the
inside of a furnace or ladle.

Lost Foam Process: A casting process that uses foam to form the pattern. The
foam is eventually melted out of the mold when the molten metal is poured in.

Metal Yield: The difference between the weight of a finished casting and the total
weight of the metal poured.

Mold: The cavity that the molten metal is poured in to form the final shape. A
mold usually consists of a top and bottom piece made of sand or ceramic material.

Net Weight of Casting: The final weight of a casting that is determined once all of
the excess metal from the gating system has been removed.

Oxidation Losses: The loss of metal or alloy through the process of oxidation.

Oxidizing Atmosphere: Furnace atmosphere which gives off oxygen under

certain conditions or where there is an excess of oxygen in the product of
combustion, or the products of combustion are oxidizing to the metal being heated.

Pattern: The wood, metal, foam or plastic replica of the final product to be made.
Patterns usually include gating systems.

Pattern Draft: The taper allowed on the vertical faces of a pattern to enable
removal of the mold or die.

Pigging: Pouring molten metal back into lined containers so that it can be returned
to the furnace.

Scrap: All non-product metal produced during the casting process.

Shrinkage: The reduction in the volume of metal that occurs as it solidifies.

Shrink Hole: A cavity that forms in a metal part when there was not enough
source metal fed into the mold during the casting process.

Slag: A film that forms on top of molten metal as a result of impurities. Slag is
composed of non-metal element
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Sprue: The opening in the mold where the metal is first poured.

Parting line: It is the line where drag and cope meet.

Runner: The horizontal ichannel feeding the molten metal into mold cavity.
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BASIC STEPS IN MAKING SAND CASTINGS

The basic steps involved in making sand castings are:

1. Patternmaking.

Patterns are required to make molds. The mold is made by packing molding sand
around the pattern. The mold is usually made in two parts so that the pattern can be
withdrawn. In horizontal molding, the top half is called the cope, and the bottom
half is called the drag. A rammer is used to make pattern in the sand by pressing
the sand. A parting material such as powdered chalk is used to prevent sticking.
When the patterns withdrawn from the molding material (sand or other), the
imprint of the pattern provides the cavity when the mold parts are brought together.
The mold cavity, together with any internal cores as required, is ultimately filled
with molten metal to form the casting.

2. If the casting is to be hollow, additional patterns, referred to as core boxes, are

needed to shape the sand forms, or cores, that are placed in the mold cavity to form
the interior surfaces and sometimes the external surfaces as well of the casting.
Thus the void between the mold and core eventually becomes the casting.

3. Molding is the operation necessary to prepare a mold for receiving the metal. It
consists of ramming sand around the pattern placed in support, or flask, removing
the pattern, setting cores in place, and creating the gating/feeding system to direct
the metal into the mold cavity created by the pattern, either by cutting it into the
mold by hand or by including it on the pattern, which is most commonly used.

4. Melting and pouring are the processes of preparing molten metal of the proper
composition and temperature and pouring this into the mold from transfer ladles.

5. Cleaning includes all the operations required to remove the gates and risers that
constitute the gating/feeding system and to remove the adhering sand, scale,
parting fins, and other foreign material that must be removed before the casting is
ready for shipment or other processing.ii
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SAND CASTING DEFECTS

1. Surface Defects

These defects are caused due to design and quality of sand molds and general
cause is poor ramming.
Blow
Blow is relatively large cavity produced by gases which displace molten metal
form.
Scar
Due to improper permeability or venting. A scare is a shallow blow. It generally
occurs on flat surf; whereas a blow occurs on a convex casting surface. A blister is
a shallow blow like a scar with thin layer of metal covering it,

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Scab

This defect occurs when a portion of the face of a mould lifts or breaks down and
the recess thus made is filled by metal. When the metal is poured into the cavity,
gas may be disengaged with such violence as to break up the sand which is then
washed away and the resulting cavity filled with metal. The reasons can be: - to
fine sand, low permeability of sand, high moisture content of sand and uneven
moulds ramming.
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Drop
Drop or crush in a mould is an irregularly shaped projection on the cope surface of
a casting. This defect is caused by the break-away of a part of mould sand as a
result of weak packing of the mould, low strength of the molding sand,
malfunctioning of molding equipment, strong jolts and strikes at the flask when
assembling the mould.
The loose sand that falls into the cavity will also cause a dirty casting surface,
either on the top or bottom surface of the casting, depending upon the relative
densities of the sand and the liquid.

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Penetration

It is a strong crust of fused sand on the surface of a casting which results from
insufficient refractoriness of molding materials, a large content of impurities,
inadequate mould packing and poor quality of mould washes.
When the molten metal is poured into the mould cavity, at those places when the
sand packing is inadequate, some metal will flow between the sand particles for a
distance into the mould wall and get solidified. When the casting is removed, this
lump of metal remains attached to the casting. Of course, it can be removed
afterwards by chipping or grinding.

Buckle
A buckle is a long, fairly shallow, broad, vee depression that occurs in the surface
of flat castings. It extends in a fairly straight line across the entire flat surface.
It results due to the sand expansion caused by the heat of the metal, when the sand
has insufficient hot deformation. It also results from poor casting design.
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2. Internal Defects

Blow holes

Blow holes, gas holes or gas cavities are well rounded cavities having a clean and
smooth surface. They appear either on the casting surface or in the body of casting.
These defects occur when an excessive evolved gas is not able to flow through the
mould. So, it collects into a bubble at the high points of a mould cavity ad prevents
the liquid metal from filling that space.
This will result in open blows. Closed, cavities or gas holes are formed when the
evolved gases or the dissolved gases in the molten metal are not able to leave the m
ass of the molten metal as it solidifies and get trapped within the casting.
These defects are caused by:
i) Excessive moisture content (in the case of green sand moulds) or organic content
of the sand, moisture on chills, chaplets or metal inserts,
ii) Inadequate gas permeability of the molding sand (due to fine grain size of sand,
high clay content, hard ramming),
iii) Poor venting of mould, insufficient drying of mould and cores, cores not
properly vented, high gas content of the molten metal,
iv) Low pouring temperature and incorrect feeding of the casting etc.

Pin holes

Pin holes are small gas holes either at the surface or just below the surface. When
these are present, they occur in large numbers and are fairly uniformly dispersed
over the surface. This defect occurs due to gas dissolved in the alloy and the alloy
not properly degassed.

v
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3. Visible defects

Wash

A cut or wash is a low; projection on the drag face of a casting that extends along
the surface, decreasing in height as it extends from one side of the casting to the
other end.

It usually occurs with bottom gating castings in which the molding sand has
insufficient hot strength, and when too much metal is made to flow through one
gate into the mold cavity,

Rat tail

A rat tail is a long, shallow, angular depression in the surface of a flat rating and
resembles a buckle, except that, it is not shaped like a broad vee. The reasons for
this defect are the same for buckle.

Hot tear

Hot tears are hot cracks which appear in the form of irregular crevices with a dark
oxidized fracture surface. They arise when the solidifying met does not have
sufficient strength to resist tensile forces produced during solidification.

They are chiefly from an excessively high temperature of casting metal, increased
metal contraction incorrect design of the gating system and casting on the whole
(causing portions of the casting to be restrained from shrinking freely during
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cooling which in turn causes excessive high intern resistance stresses), poor
deformability of the cores, and non-uniform cooling which gives rise t internal
stresses. This defect can be avoided by improving the design of the casting and by
having a mould of low hot strength and large hot deformation.

Shrinkage
A shrinkage cavity is a depression or an internal void in a casting that results from
the volume contraction that occurs during solidification.

Swell

A swell is a slight, smooth bulge usually found on vertical faces of castings,

resulting from liquid metal pressure. It may be due to low strength of mould
because of too high a water content or when the mould is not rammed sufficiently.

Shift
Mold shift refers to a defect caused by a sidewise displacement of the mold cope
relative to the drag, the result of which is a step in the cast product at the parting
line. Core shift is similar to mold shift, but it is the core that is displaced, and (he
dis-placement is usually vertical. Core shift and mold shift are caused by buoyancy
of the molten metal
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Misrun or cold sheet or short run

This defect is incomplete cavity filling. The reasons can be: - inadequate metal
supply, too- low mould or melt temperature, improperly designed gates, .or length
to thickness ratio of the casting is too large. When molten metal is flowing from
one side in a thin section, it may lose sufficient heat resulting in loss of its fluidity,
such that the leading edge of the stream may freeze before it reaches the end of the
cavity.

i
http://www.ferralloy.com/casting-glossary.htm
ii
http://materialrulz.weebly.com/uploads/7/9/5/1/795167/binder_mcm_02.pdf
iii
http://mechanicalinventions.blogspot.com/2012/11/different-types-of-castings-defects.html
iv
http://mechanicalinventions.blogspot.com/2012/11/different-types-of-castings-defects.html
v
http://mechanicalinventions.blogspot.com/2012/11/different-types-of-castings-defects.html