Quality of castings

Inspection methods and testing

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 Inspection methods for cast components
How to select proper inspection method?

• There is no such thing as sound casting

– Defects exist because
• Properties of cast materials (shringage etc.)
• Manufacturing process
• You have to know the quality level when inspecting castings

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 Factors which affect on the choice of the inspection
method

• Requirements of the component

– Loading, stresses
– risks
• Casting material
• Inspection level should be selected so that you first concider all the
requirements of the component

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 Inspection level

• Quality class
– In inspection standards the quality level is between 1 to 5
• Size of allowed casting defects go up when 1 => 5
• Costs go up when 5 => 1
• Inspection methos
– Some inspection methods are suotable only to certain materials
• Inspection frequency
– 100%/sampling
– proto, series deliveries

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 Recommendation for quality level
• Carbon steels
– Basic class 3
– If class 3 is not enough choose tempering steel
• Tempering steel
– Basic class 3
– Mechanically stressed areas class 2
– Extremely stressed areas class 1 (e.g. gearing)
• Stainless steels
– Basic class 4
• GJS
– Visual inspection
• GJL
– Visual inspection

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 Non-destructive testing, NDT of castings

• Visual inspection
• pintatarkastus
– magneettijauhetarkastus (MT)
– tunkeumanestetarkastus (PT)
• sisäinen eheys
– ultraäänitarkastus (UT)
– röntgentarkastus (RTG)

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 Visual inspection

• Simplest and fastest inspection method

• Most commonly employed
• Usually good to check surface defects
• Fails to identify internal defects

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 Magnetic particle inspection, MPI
• Most satisfactory method used to find
surface and sub surface defects
• Quick, cheap and very sensitive
• Can only be applied to ferrous metals like
normal steels and cast iron

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 Liquid penetrant test, LPI
• Surface preparation
• Penetrant application Laatuluokka 3
• Penetrant dwell
• Excess penetrant removal
• Developer application
• Indication development
• Inspection
• Clean surface

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 Ultrasonic testing, UT

• When there is a crack or hole in the wave path, part of

the energy will be reflected back from the flaw surface
and it is displayed on a screen
• From the signal, experienced inspector can get
information about the reflector location, size and
orientation

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 X-ray radiography, XXR
• X-ray technique is effective in locating cracs,
inclusions, porosity etc.
• X-ray can be used for inspection in all casting metals
• High costs
• Safety issues

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