CAUSES AND REMEDIES OF

BLOW HOLES IN SAND CASTING

Guided By:
Prof. Vishal Mehta Bhavin Desai
Dept. of Mech. Engineering Quality Manager
Himsons Cast Pvt. Ltd.
Prepared By:
Darshak Dhanani (12ME017) Jigar Kasundra (12ME036)
Devang Patel (12ME066) Jainil Radadiya (12ME099)
Introduction
• Casting is a manufacturing process where solid is
melted, heated to proper temperature and is then
poured into cavity or mold, which contains it in the
proper shape during solidification.
• Casting is a process which carries risk of failure
occurrence during all the process of
accomplishment of the finished product.
• During the process of casting, there is always a
chance where defect will occur. Therefore it is
essential for die caster to have knowledge on the
type of defect and be able to identify the exact root
cause, and their remedies.
Objective:

 To observe defects in sand casted components.

 Selection of the most frequently occurring defect
i.e Blowhole.
 Parameters that causes and affect blowholes.
 To find remedies to reduce the blowholes which is
produced in sand casting.
 CASTING DEFECT CAN BE
CLASSIFIED AS FOLLOWS

 Filling related defect

 Shape related defect

 Thermal defect

 Defect by appearance
1.Filling related defects:
 Blowhole

 Sand burning
 Sand inclusion
 Misrun

 Gas porosity
2. Shape defects:
 Mismatch

 Distortion or warp
 Flash defect
3. Thermal defects:
 Cracks or tears

 Shrinkage
4. Defects by Appearance:
 Metallic projection
 Cavities
 Discontinuities
Rejection Data of Himsons:
Defects Rejected Quantity Job Rejection %
Blowhole 123 1.38

Bad Mold 42 0.47

Shrinkage 31 0.34

Bad Core 19 0.21

Cores Broken 16 0.17

Mismatch 13 0.14

Hard 7 0.07

Swell 1 0.01

Others 3 0.003
 To understand the concept, data for occurrence of
defects are collected from HIMSONS for one month.
From this data, occurrence chart has been prepared
which further helps to identify occurrence major defects
in castings. We found that maximum defect occur due to
blow hole.
BLOWHOLES IN SAND CASTING
 There are different types of defects produced in sand casting.
A high proportion of casting defects are caused due to
evolution of gases. One of the major casting defects caused
due to gases is holes (gas holes). Gas holes are pinholes and
blowholes. This designation belongs to size of the hole and
not its origin. Blowhole is very prevalent cause of casting
scrap. Figure shows schematic of blowholes, showing
blowholes near core, surface blowholes and casting strewn
with blowholes.
BLOWHOLES IN SAND CASTING
TYPES OF BLOWHOLES:
 Blowholes due to high gas content of the metal
 Carbon oxygen reaction holes
 Blowholes from mold or core gases
 Mechanical entrapment of gas
CAUSES OF BLOWHOLES:
1.Design / pattern equipment
 Lack of venting and vent locations
 Metal entering into vents because of poor core fit and
lack of sealing
 Poor design of gating system / slow pouring /metal
turbulence, lack of slag removal.
 Short risers, not enough metal pressure
 Insufficient space between mold cavity and flask walls
& bars.
 Pouring metal against large flat & hard surfaces.
2.Process
 Molding Sand – high moisture, low permeability, clay
balls, poor mixing, and incorrect volatile content in
green sand.
 Too high a moisture for the clay level and
compactability
 Excessive binders, un-dried coatings, uncured resins in
no-
 bake sand and cores.
 Blocked or metal-capped vents.
 Excessive gases dissolved in metal
 Excessive oxygen (rusty scrap), hydrogen due to excess
aluminium and titanium in metal, or excess nitrogen.
3. Most probable causes
 Excessive gas producing materials in metallic charge.
 Excess binder in core and/or molding sand.
 Slow pouring and colder metal – lack of fluidity.
 Vents missing or not working in cores and molds.
 Low carbon or carbon equivalent.
 Lack of metal filtration and/ or slag removal.
REMEDIES FOR BLOWHOLES:
1. Resin-bonded sand:
 Improve core venting, provide venting channels,
ensure core prints are free of dressing
 Reduce amounts of gas. Use slow-reacting binder.
Reduce quantity of binder. Use a coarser sand if
necessary.
 Apply dressing to cores, thus slowing down the rate of
heating and reducing gas pressure.
 Dry out cores and store dry, thus reducing absorption
of water and reducing gas pressure
2. Clay-bonded sand:
 Reduce moisture content of sand. Improve conditioning of
the sand. Reduce inert dust content.
 Improve gas permeability. Endeavour to use coarser sand.
Reduce bentonite and carbon carrier content.
 Reduce sand temperature. Install a sand cooler if necessary.
Increase sand quantity.
 Reduce bentonite content. Use bentonite with a high
montmorillonite content, high specific binding capacity and
good thermal stability.
 Use slow-reacting lustrous carbon producers or carbon
carriers with higher capacity for producing lustrous carbon.
In the last instance, the content of carbon carriers in the
moulding sand can be reduced.
3. Moulding plant:
 Reduce compaction of the moulds. Ensure more uniform
mould compaction through better sand distribution.

4. Gating and pouring practice:

 Increase pouring temperature. Reduce the pouring rate as
appropriate.
 Increase metallostatic pressure by changing the gating
system.
 If possible raise the cope flask.
 By provide initial spark during pouring we can remove
entrap gases
 There are many factors which can be taken care for
removal of blowholes in sand casting as discussed in
above slides.

 Our main focus is on the following three factors for

removing the blowholes.

 PERMEABILITY
 MOISTURE CONTENT
 GREEN COMPRESSIBILITY STRENGTH
MAIN FACTORS AFFECTING FOR
BLOWHOLES GENERATION
PERMEABILITY:
 The gas evolution capability of the moulding sand in
sand casting is termed as permeability.
 The graph in next slides shows the varying permeability
of sand depending upon moisture content and grain size.
MOISTURE CONTENT:

 Moisture is an important element of the molding sand as

it affects many properties.
 To test the moisture of a molding of a molding sand, a
carefully weighed test sample of 50 g is dried at a
temperature of 105 Celsius to 110 Celsius for 2 hours by
which time all the moisture in the sand would have been
evaporated.
GREEN COMPRESSIBILITY
STRENGTH:

 Green compression strength or simply green strength

generally refers to the stress required to rupture the sand
specimen under compressive loading.
Escape of Gases:
 The internal cavities should be so designed as to
permit the escape of gases evolving from the cores
when the molten metal is poured in Internal cores,
which are small and long are likely to pose difficulties
in clearing also.
 Sand burned into core holes, and fins or viens, are very
difficult to remove when they are hard to reach.
 ESCAPE PROVISION FOR CORE GASES

 CORE GAS VENTING

 Green Compressibility Strength Vs Days
1400

1200

1000

800

GCS
600

400

200

0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
SYNOPSIS:-
 We have seen lot of defects that arises in and defect on which we
have worked is Blowholes. We had looked for the root causes of it
and the remedies that we can take. We found that it depends on
many factors few of them is permeability, moisture content and on
Green compressibility strength(GCS) .
 Firstly, the occurrence of blowhole depends on permeability
greatly. As it is property that allows the gas to escape from mold.It
should neither be more nor less. If it is more the casting becomes
brittle and if it gas will be trapped so chances of blow hole
increases.It should be optimum that its value should lie between
110-120.
 Furthermore, it also depends on the moisture content .If the
moisture content is more the amount of the vapour formed due to
evaporation will be more so the occurrence of blowholes is
probable.Its value should lie between 4.3-4.6.