Groover/Introduction to Manufacturing Processes

Casting Case Study: Kevin Working in Detroit

Kevin was very excited about his new engineering job near Detroit. He was
finally going to be able to contribute to the next generation of automobile design
for one of the world’s largest carmakers. Even better, his first project was in
development of a new-model hydrogen-fueled sports car. The assignment
involved product and process design for three large frame-type structural
components for the front half of the car.

Since the parts would eventually be needed in fairly high volume, Kevin figured a
net shape process such as casting would be the only economical approach for
production. Although cast iron is definitely the best structural material for casting,
the demands of the part required the strength and toughness of steel. Kevin’s
boss agreed and told Kevin to get started on completing the remaining design
details for the parts and getting the plans for production rolling.

As for production, the parts would be cast at their usual foundry, located over the
border in Canada. Both to save costs and to maintain control over the geometry,
Kevin and his colleagues decided to produce the original patterns for the castings
for later shipment to the foundry. They decided to have each pattern machined
out of aluminum. One of the key decisions Kevin had to make involved the
shrinkage allowance. The direction and uniformity of shrinkage in a casting often
depends on the geometry and part features, though in this case he decided they
could use a linear shrink rate in all directions.

Kevin’s last task for the new parts was to get an estimate of production cost. For
the casting, Kevin consulted the foundry and they told him that the cost mainly
depended on two quantities: the heat energy (and thus time) needed to melt the
material for each part and the cycle time needed for solidification of each part in
the mold. For the first part design, Kevin computed a 3.5 minute melting time
based on the heat properties of steel and a 1000 kW electric-arc furnace which
operates at 80% efficiency (i.e, 20% of the heat energy from the furnace is lost to
the environment). Solidification trials on a simple 2-inch diameter, 4-inch long
cylinder took 4.0 minutes, so Kevin calculated a 16 minute time for solidification
of his first part based on its volume and surface area.
WATCH THE VIDEO: Casting

1. Sand casting molds include risers that attach to the part cavity but are
away from the pouring channels and gates. What is a riser’s purpose?

2. Is it likely that some features on Kevin’s parts will need to be machined

after they come back from sand casting? Explain.

3. Kevin decided to use a traditional sand casting process for the

components partly due to their large size. What other part design
considerations can make investment casting a more attractive option?

4. When wax or plastic patterns are dipped in ceramic slurry for the first time
in investment casting, special attention is paid to the composition of the
slurry. What characteristics should the slurry have and why?

GO TO THE TEXT: Chapter 6

5. What are “no-bake” molds, and how do they compare to green sand
molds? See Section 6.1.

6. How are the expanded polystyrene foam patterns made for the lost foam
casting process? See Section 6.2.

7. Which sand casting defects in Section 6.5 are due to the release of gases
or from moisture in the sand molds?

8. Why is steel so much harder to cast than cast iron? See Section 6.6.

9. What typical tolerances can Kevin and his colleagues expect out of the
sand casting process on their large, steel parts? See Section 6.7.

SOLVE

10. Although Section 5.3.3 in the text shows a more complicated picture of
shrinkage, it is still common for practical casting operations to assume a
consistent linear shrink rate. If Kevin’s part design calls for a length of 38
inches and a width of 22 inches, compute the length and width for the
pattern to accommodate a linear shrinkage value of 1.8%.

11. Use values from Tables 3.10 and 3.11 and Eqn 5.1 to estimate the part
volume corresponding to Kevin’s computation of 3.5 minutes for melting
time. Assume the specific heat of the liquid metal steel is 20% smaller
than that of the solid, and the heat of fusion is 120 J/g. The steel melts at
1530ºC and is to be poured at 100ºC higher.
12. Use the part volume from Question 11 and the Solidification time method
in Section 5.3.2 (with the results of Kevin’s solidification trials) to estimate
the surface area for Kevin’s part corresponding to his 16-minute
calculation.

Casting Case Study – Solutions

1. A riser is a reservoir that holds excess molten metal from the pour.
Gravitational pressure from the metal in the reservoir helps
compensate for material shrinkage during solidification.
2. Sand casting is not meant to be a precision process. Expected
tolerances on part dimensions are quite loose, so most likely there will
need to be some machining on part features with critical dimensions or
that mate with other parts.
3. Investment casting is more often used for smaller parts for which the
wax patterns needed can be easily made in higher volume. The need
for complex shapes, thin walls, tight tolerances, and a smooth finish
are also often necessary to justify the extra cost of investment casting.
4. The slurry for the first dip should have fine ceramic particles to ensure
a smooth surface finish on the part. Subsequent dips can be made in
a courser slurry to build up bulk on the investment.
5. “No Bake” molds replace the tradition clay-and-water or thermoset
polymer binders used in traditional sand molds with resins that do not
need heat in order to cure. The result is a mold that can maintain
better dimensional control over high production volume.
6. Patterns for the lost foam casting process may be manually cut or
assembled for small volumes. Larger numbers of patterns are usually
molded by injecting the foam into a master mold.
7. Sand blow and pinholes are sand casting defects that can result from
the moisture content and release of gases from the mold.
8. Steels generally have a much higher melting temperature than cast
irons and so require more energy to cast. They also oxidize rapidly at
the high temperatures and have poor fluidity which limits part design.
9. Large, steel parts can expect tolerances of about +/- .080 inches.
10. Length = 38/(1-.018) = 38.70 in. and width = 22/(1-.018) = 22.40in.
11. 3.5 minutes in a 1000 kW furnace at 80% efficiency corresponds to
1.68 x 108 J. From the tables and Eqn 5.1, the specific heat needed to
melt each gram is .11 Cal/gºC (4.186 J/Cal)(1530-25ºC) + 120 J/g +
.8(.11)(4.186)(100ºC) = 849.8 J/g. The part is therefore 198 kg or has
a volume of 198 x 103 g / 7.87 g/cm3 = 25,120 cm3 or 1,533 in3.
12. The solidification trial on the cylinder (volume = 12.566 in 3, surface
area = 31.4 in2) resulted in 4.0 minutes, so the constant in Eqn 5.7 is
Cm = 4.0 min / (12.566/31.4)2 = 24.98 min/in2 = 3.871 min/cm2.
Therefore, for Kevin’s part 16 min = 3.871 min/cm 2 (25,120 cm3 /
Surface Area) 2. Surface area = 12,356 cm2 or 1,915 in2.