DESIGN OF MOLD SAND TESTING APPARATUS FOR ANALYSIS OF EFFECTS ON THE PERMEABILITY OF MOLD SAND DUE TO VARIATION IN MOLASSES CONTENTS

Abstract

Manufacturing plays a key role in the development of a sustaining economy and improvement of financial conditions of any country. In Pakistan, most of the manufacturing is undertaken on the foundry shop of each individual industry. Metal Casting taking place in these shops is carried out according to past experience and skill of the workman. Therefore many casting defects are bound to occur since no significant research has been carried out in this regard which could be put into the efforts of the workman and thus he has to learn through the mistakes he makes. This project in this sense is very important for the point of the manufacturing industry as it will enable the workman to overcome various defects by complying with this research. This research focuses on the design of testing apparatus for the molding sand and also on the tests performed on this apparatus. Green sand casting is quite a large field of study; hence this project only pertains to the permeability of the mold sand. The test apparatus should conform to the standards set by British Standards Institute (BSI). Three parameters should be generated inside the apparatus; namely, time, pressure and permeability number. The requisite materials to be used for the manufacture of the apparatus are also identified in this project. 3D modeling of the apparatus is carried out using Pro-Engineer Wildfire 5.0 software. This model can be utilized on the CNC machines to develop the apparatus. The tests carried out on this apparatus are analyzed keeping in view the permeability of the molding sand and the best combination of the molding sand composition is determined through it. Future research can be undertaken keeping this research in mind for various other characteristics of the molding sand which affect the properties and surface finish of the casted material.