MME 3210

Materials Processing Techniques

Faculty of Engineering
University of Malta

Sand Casting of an
Aluminium 13wt% Silicon Alloy

Matthew Bonnici (391492 M)

11/04/2014

Part 1
Casting can be subdivided into two different types which are known as continuous and non continuous
casting. As the name implies continuous casting consists of flow of liquid metal which is drawn by gravity
through a an open end water cooled mould which preforms the material which is then rolled and cut to
specific sizes to produce generally billets of solid cast metal. On the other hand non continuous casting
consists of having liquid metal or formable/molten polymer which is poured or squeezed inside a close ended
mould. In this way the material poured inside would take shape of the internal geometry of the mould and
when ejected the product would have the negative form of the mould. To be more specific, non continuous
casting can be subdivided into three different process classifications which depend on the type of mould
being used in each of the process. The classifications consists of the following; Permanent pattern,
Permanent mould and Expandable mould and pattern. As it could be deduced from their name the
Permanent pattern consits of a preformed product which is used to build the mould around such as in sand
casting where the mould is made each time a cast is needed to be made and destroyed at the end of the
process . In Permanent mould a single mould is made use of where this is generally made of high quality tool
steel and liquid metal is poured inside and ejected upon cooling. On the other hand the Expandable mould
and pattern makes use of a preformed product, same as the Permanent pattern, which is however made of
a low melting temperature material. A mould is formed around this pattern and then liquid metal is then
poured inside the mould with the pattern melting and dissolving by the heat given out from the molten
metal. Hence the metal will then replace the molten pattern until it solidifies and is then extracted by
destroying the mould.
During the laboratory session held, a sand casting mould
was being used and hence the Permanent pattern process
was used. This was done by having a preformed metal
pattern divided into two and having one half of it facing
downwards inside half a mould chamber. Two different
types of sand were then placed upon it in order to make the
negative form of such pattern. When this process was
finished the mould was inverted and the other half of the
pattern was attached using dowels to locate the exact
position. The other half of the mould chamber was then
placed on top of the other half and the sand process was
repeated in order to achieve a complete mould. This was
then split open and the patterns were both removed
Figure 1:Mould formed and ready to be closed
carefully in order to expose completely the negative forms
of both halves. After forming the feeder, filling and runner system, the mould was reclosed and secured by
pins in order not slide and it was ready to receive the needed amount of molten Aluminium alloy containing
13 wt% of Silicon.
The pattern used had different volumes throughout and was a quite complicated shape to form. This showed
that the sand casting technique is very good at forming shapes having a high degree of contours throughout.
This was verified during research about sand casting and lectures attended were it is known that the sand
casting technique was and is still used in the automotive industry were engine cylinder heads and engine
block are made using this technique amongst other techniques. If we take in consideration an engine cylinder
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head, this component is quite difficult to machine as it has intake and exhaust ports while also having valve
seats ports,injector ports, cooling channels and attachment areas for bolts. All these features make it quite
difficult and the degree of tollerance is quite low as these parts have to last for a long time while also being
able to perform as they were designed. As a result of this the quality of each cylinder head is achieved from
the casting process with a post machining process in order to remove any gates and runners which would be
attached to the system while also polishing the mating face. From this case in point we can deduce that the
sand casting technique is highly flexible as any part could be made using this technique also giving that the
part is hollow or solid. Hollow part are simply made using the same technique with an internal pattern being
placed inside the mould before closed. As the liquid metal is poured, the remaining volume around the
pattern is filled up and when the part is removed the internal pattern is either burnt or removed mechanically
depending on the component in question. Giving this high degree of flexibility, this process still offers some
quality issues such as having poor dimensional accuracy due to the fact that components tend to shrink as
no pressure is being applied upon the melt. Surface texture is also known to ba a problematic cause as the
sand particles would give this texture due to them being seperated by a small distance between their contact
points. However these two points can be catered for by having different feeding designs which would cater
for the shrinkage problem while also being able to coat the mould in order to form a much more smoother
surface finish while also being able to perform post machining processes in order to achieve the same or
better result.

Part 2
During the sand casting process several problems could arise which would affect the final structure of the
components such as cast being incomplete, cast containing pores, cost having a very rouch texture and so
on. These problems which may be encountered with shall be listed and discussed individually as follows.
Casting Fluidity The first problem which one might encounter is the casting fluidity. This represents the
fluidity of the molten material being poured and hence how the material is able to flow inside the cavity.
Failing to flow completely through the cavity will result in having an incomplete product which have end
contours which are missing. This results from having a fluid which is solidifying before reaching the end of
the mould and hence not being able to fill the complete available mould volume. This problem can be
reduced by several methods with the first one being using a material which will still be able to flow
throughout the mould available. Another method is to enlarge the runner and gate system in order not to
prevent any premature blockage of the mould while also place the feeding system at a thick cross-section of
the component. The last option would be to heat the mould to a temperature were the material would still
be able to flow and hence eliminate the risk of having incomplete products, however this must be studied
wisely before implementation as longer cooling times would then be required for the components to solidify.
Penetration & Pressure This problem is generally encountered into moulds which have a high degree of
detail. These details would generally consist of chamfers or fillets, holes and even text embossed inside the
product. The melt would find it difficult to penetrate in these small spaces as the surface tension could stop
completely the flow of molten fluid to fill these gaps. In order to exceed this stopping force exerted by the
surface tension, pressure should be applied onto the feeding system in order to push the molten liquid
further inside the mould while forcing it inside these tight spaces. In this way these small gaps would be
easily filled as the pressure exerted would break up the surface tension. The drawback of this solution is that
the liquid metal would exert extra pressure onto the surrounding sand mould which would result in the
molten metal trying to infiltrate through the sand. As a result of this the surface texture of the cast would
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become more rougher which is generally undesirable. However, as already mentioned, a coating of fine
grained ceramic could be applied inside the mould cavity in order to produce a solid and more compact layer
inside the mould which would make it more difficult for the molten liquid to penetrate and hence produce
a smooth smooth surface finish.
Open & Closed Moulds Pouring of the molten metal takes place inside either an open or a closed mould.
Starting with an open moulds, the two problems which might be encountered are pores and lack of
penetration. These two major problems are usually a result of liquid agitation during pouring which will
result in air trapped inside the melt and hence pore formation taking place while also as a result of lack of
pressure being applied as usually no pressure is used apart from the atmospheric pressure. The first step is
to pour the melt as slowly as possible in order to have a constant supply of liquid metal. In this way pores
are less prone to be present as air is not trapped during the process. The second step is to apply a pressure
on top of the mould in order to achieve sound penetration throughout the whole cast.
In closed moulds the problems are very similar with the addition of having uncomplete parts when gates and
runners are designed to be very small and hence result in premature solidification of these channels. As
already mentioned before, pouring must be made slowly while making use of a pouring bush with a baffle in
order to separate any foreign inclusions which might get entrapped inside the melt. Pressure must again be
applied if any small contours are not being formed completely while also a redesign of the moulds gates and
runners positions and system must be made in order to achieve a better flow of the melt. Also the feeding
system must be designed in such way to be able to compensate for any shrinkage which the cast might
encounter. This shrinkage usually occurs as a result of the heat flow of the cast. As the cast cools down, heat
is rejected slowly through the mould and the cast generally shrinks. In order to avoid this a feeding system
is used in order to give the necessary lost volume in order not to deform. Apart from this, given that the
sand is an insulation material, when the cast is ejected upon cooling, it usually shrinks up to a certain degree
of size and hence as a solution engineers design the mould cavity to be bigger than the actual dimensions of
the final product in order to compensate for this final shrinkage.
As explained above, the three major problems which might be encountered during the sand casting process
are shrinkage in the final product, porosity and rough surface texture. The solutions for all of these would
be to compensate for the shrinkage by creating a slightly larger mould while feeding the cast during cooling.
Porosity must be tackled by having a slow and continuous pour of the liquid metal while exerting a pressure
in order for air to escape and fill up any small spaces. Surface texture can be improved by simply reducing
the exerted pressure which could then lead to lack of penetration or else give a ceramic coating to the
internal cavity of the mould in order to block any penetration through the surrounding sand.
Another important problem which might arise during sand casting is hot tearing. This problem would be the
result of non uniform mould cooling which would then tear up a section of the cast from the rest resulting
in cast damage. In order to solve this problem the mould cooling temperature must be controlled throughout
by having the mould heated and then cooled at a specific rate in order to protect the cast. Sand already acts
as an insulator and hence controls the cooling rate, however when a thin layer is applied at specific points
given that the mould chamber is small for the cast needed, these specific points would cool quicker and at a
higher cooling rate which could result in hot tearing. This could also be simply avoided by having a mould
chamber which is big enough to accommodate the cast together with a sufficient surrounding volume of
sand which would slow down the cooling rate uniformly throughout.
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Part 3
As liquid metal is poured inside the mould, given that no foreign particles are present in the cast, nucleants
will start to form uniformaly throughout the cast to form crystals. Crystals can either form and grow into a
pure crystal or else can grow into a single phase alloy and eutectic alloys. In order for the first nucleants to
occur the material must pass through a certain degree of undercooling. This undercooling is also needed to
maintain crystal growth which results in crystals growing with the rate of undercooling which reaches a
steady state at a certain point were the dendrites are formed throughout a single crystal structure. These
structures are noticed to form in the preferred crystal direction which usually is at the edge of a crystal
structure.
In alloy castings which do not have a eutectic composition dendrites are more common and free to grow
due to the result of non equilibrium concentration gradients which lead to the constitutional undercooling.
Solute atoms being rejected build a layer at the solid-liquid interface which when undercooled grow in order
to become stable and form the dendrites needed to form a solid solution.
Constitutional undercooling is the major effect for the formation of the solid solution with this being varied
and resulting into different stucture formation varying from planar growth to cell growth and dedritic
growth. Planar growth is noticed to form when the temperature of the melt does not cross the liquidus
temperature and hence a prolonged amount of time is given for the solid to form. When this constitutional
undercooling is taken at a larger rate and the melt temperature is noticed to cross the liquidus temperature,
the growth will become a cellular growth were individual nucei will form which will eventually form a cell
and grow to form separate cell which grow individually from one another. Upon inspecting a further increase
in the degree of constitutional undercooling it is seen that the melt temperature crosses the liquidus
temperature by a significant amount and hence this would result a dendritic growth were separate dendrites
would form at the edges of the crystal structure and grow towards the thickest section of the cast as this is
last section to solidify given that the rate of heat transfer would be different throughout the cast as a result
of different cross sections of the cast. These dendrites would then keep on growing until cast grains formed
from a number of dendrites each will come in contact with each other and press upon each other until no
more liquid material is present and the cast is turned completely into a solid material.
In the material used for the casting process during the laboratory session, aluminium was made use of which
had an addition of 13 wt% of silicon. This silicon shifts the alloy to a eutectic composition which is form at
around 12.6 wt% of Silicon. At this point the material has the lowest melting temperature while also being
able to solidify and form a lamellar structure of both the constituent which in this case are aluminium and
silicon. Having also the lowest melting temperature will result in a material which have the least amount of
Hydrogen absorbed and hence reduce the amount of pores in the casting process. When Silicon is added,
the mixture becomes less viscous and it is easily introduced in difficult parts while casting which results in a
less pressure needed to fill the crevices and tight areas which might be present in the cast being made. It is
also important to point out that the density of the mixture is reduced when mixing silicon as this has a smaller
density than aluminium (2340 kg/m3 against 2700 kg/m3) which makes this material more efficient to be
used in industry. While the melt solidifies it shrinks as the temperature is reduced, however with the aid of
silicon this tends to expand which will counteract the shrinkage and will highly reduce pores in the cast.
Being also a eutectic alloy, the material will melt at the least possible temperature and hence the gradient
of cooling would not be as steep as that of a higher melting temperature material and this reduce the chance
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for hot tearing. Another aspect is that the Silicon phase has a diamond like crystal structure which is very
brittle and will form plates in the system thus reducing the ductiliy of the material and making it a much
more harder material while being less tougher as it becomes more brittle.

Part 4
A sand casting mould generally consists of two input chambers which are the
filling and the feeding. The filling system as the name implies is used to fill the
mould from and thus this is connected to a gate/s followed by a runner/s.
Filling systems must be made in such a way in order to avoid any turbulence
during the melt pouring and hence avoid porosity from taking place. Also the
pouring bush must have an integrated offset in order to slow down the melt
pour for a better control and achieving less melt agitation while also serving as
a multi purpose system by blocking any foreign sedimental particles which
might be entrapped in the melt. It is also very important to have mould being
filled from the lowest part and hence the melt being introduced from the
bottom up. This again is to reduce as much as possible the agitation inside the
Figure 2: Cast showing feeding
mould while pouring as the melt would free fall inside if the runner system is
system passing through crosssection
not placed at the bottom hence creating a substantial amount of turbulence. In
the sand casting experiment made it was noted that these procedures were not
followed and hence a substantial amount of improvement could be made to the cast. In fact in the speciman
made, no pouring bush with integrated offset was used which made to melt pouring velocity be controlled
only the laboratory technician ability. Also the runner was set to be at the cross-section of the cast and hence
during pouring the melt undergone a free fall the distance of half the cross section. This again induced
turbulance inside the mould giving rise to pores inside the cast which are not desired at all as a sound and
solid cast is always desired in such process.
Feeding systems, same as filler systems, must be chosen and made carefully. During casting it is known that
the cast shrink while cooling and hence compensation of such shrinkage must be made in order to have a
complete cast. A graph showing the volume of cast against
temperature can be seen and as can be noted the volume of the
cast drastically decreases as the melting/solidification
temperature is reached upon cooling. As a result shrinkage starts
to occur upon cooling with the most amount of volume decrease
at this particular temperature. Feeding systems are present in
such systems in order to compensate for such shrinkage which the
cast might encounter and hence the first factor which we might
extrapolate is to have enough feeding volume to compensate for
the shrinkage without having the cast starving from metal
compensation. From this we can extrapolate that the minimum
feeding volume must be as large as the maximum shrinkage which
the cast can undergo. In this way the cast is made sure that it is
being compensated given that it shrinks. If feeding system is too
Figure 3: Graph showing Volume against
small, apart from having compensation metal starvation resulting
Temperature
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into a deformed cast, surface tension and porosity are more likely to occur as follows. When feeding metal
is not available, the cast would start to shrink and hence suction is made through the feeding chamber. In
this way air would be introduced inside the mould and can mix up with the molten metal inside which would
result into a porous areas near the feeding system. Surface tensions would also be present in such system
especially near the feeding system which would result in incomplete cast were small detail is present. This is
due to the fact that the feeding system exerts a substantial amount of pressure on the cast which aids it to
penetrate these small crevices and other tight spaces as mentioned earlier.
After stating that the feeding volume must be big enough to
compensate for the shrinkage volume, another important
factor must be stated. This is to have the feeder to solidify at a
slower rate than that of the cast. The reason behind this is to
be able to supply liquid metal to the cast during the
solidification process. In order to achieve this the heat transfer
criterion states that as a rule of thumb the feeder must have a
higher degree of modulus than that of the casting and hence a
safety factor of 20% is used for the feeder in order to achieve
this. In this way the modulus of the feeder must be a factor of
1.2 times larger than that of the cast. In order to be able to
achieve this the size and shape of the feeder can be varied were
the different shapes used are able to modify the modulus
value. Case in point, a hemispherical feeder has an increased
percentage in modulus of 6% when compared to a cylindrical
feeder. This is simply due to the fact that the surface area is
larger and hence heat takes longer time to escape hence it
Figure 4: Filling and Feeding systems being formed
would take longer for the feeder to solidify. Another option is
to insulate the feeder in order to prolong substantially the
solidification time by introducing an insulative sleeve around the feeder. Materials which react
exothermically can also be fed in the feeder in order to prolong the solidification time with these materials
being introduced even in insulative sleeves. In the laboratory session held no insulative sleeve was made as
the cast made was rather small and not complicated and hence the liquid had enough time to flow through
the mould and solidify.
Given that sufficient feeding material is available and that this material is solidifying at a slower rate is not
enough to achieve a sound cast. The problem lies at the connection between the feeder and the cast itself.
If the connection is put at a location were the cast is thin, and hence heat could escape much quicker than
in thicker parts, the supply of molten metal would not be able to reach the needed areas and hence
incompletion of surface sinks would be absorved. It is important to place the feeding at the thickest part of
the cast as this would take a longer time to solidify. Case in point, during the session held, the feeder was
placed at a thin section of the cast with this resulting in shrinkage and sagging of the cast at its thicker section
as can be noticed in the diagram below.

As already explained thicker section take longer times to solidify

and hence they shrink more than thin section as a much more
larger volume is occupied. As a rule of thumb the section must be
first inspected and the feeder must be placed at the thickest part
of the cast as was done in the modified cast which was shown to
us. In this way geometrical circles could be drawn or visualised
and tested if there is any hindering from the casts outer layer. If
necessesary more than one feeder can be placed for casts having
various descepancies in the cross-section throughout.

Figure 5: Cast showing surface sagging at thickest

cross-section

The last criterion which must be followed is the pressure criterion

were pressure needs to be applied by the feeder in order to eliminate as much as possible pore nucleation
and growth. Apart from pore elimination pressure is important as already stated in order to push the molten
material into the small crevices and tight spaces which might be present in the cast and which might partially
solidify during the pouring stage of the liquid metal. In this was, by exerting pressure on the feeding system,
the cast will be more solid and sound throughout. To achieve this, as made in the session held, the feeder
must be placed at the highest part of the cast in order to achieve the greatest gravitational pull which would
result in the greatest pressure which can be exerted by the surrounding environment.
To recapulate all this the feeding system must simply solidify at a later stage than that of the cast and hence
it must be insulated and given the needed feeder shape if this is solidifing before the cast. The feeder must
also contain enough volume to compensate for the shrinkage while also being situated at the highest level
from the mould in order to experience the greatest natural pressure while being also situated at the thickest
section of the cast in order for the flow to be able to flow from the thickest section outwards to the thinnest
section. Below is the cast generated in a 3D model which was made during the laboratory session with a
modified version next to it to compare all the criteria listed above. Also the filling system is revised to start
from the bottom up while also having three separate gates in order to reduce as much as possible the melt
agitation while also introducing a dross trap in order to trap any initial melt which would rush in at higher
velocity and hence be more turbulent while can contain a larger amount of foreign particles.

Figure5: Cast made during Laboratory Session

References

Figure6: Modified Cast having three

runners starting from bottom and
feeder situated at thickest cross
section

[1] E. L. a. E. M., Manufacturing with Materials, Butterwoth, 1990.

[2] Custom Part, 2014. [Online]. Available: http://www.custompartnet.com/wu/SandCasting.
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