The Metal casting industry is in recovery phase after the economic crisis in 2008, customer demand continues to increase, with 98.6 million metric tons cast in 2011. Traditional ferrous and non-ferrous casting techniques require one shot or permanent moulds which require tooling to be produced. Tooling particularly for developmental projects can be costly and take valuable time to produce. Additive manufacturing has been used to manufacture complex sand patterns for metal sand casting using laser sintering and sand bonding techniques. This research focuses on characterising the sand bonded process developed by ExOne GmbH Germany.

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Abstract:Additive manufacturing (AM) of metallic products is seen by many to be commercially viable for only small and highly complex components, manufactured with difficult to machine materials using heat sintering process. In the automotive manufacturing sector, metal hard tooling is often required to produce mass produced components, and the tools are typically bespoke, large in size, inflexible and complex. Conventionally these tools have either been machined from solid billets or near-net-shape cast and then machined to get final size. Rapid casting technologies (RCT) use AM 3D sand printing process to manufacture sand mould tools used to create the production tooling. Adopters of this technology can achieve an increasingly agile and robust production process, RCT can also rewrite the design hand book for casting design. The research findings demonstrate that RCT can be successfully applied within the automotive industry, achieving considerable cost and time savings whilst improving quality and product flexibility.Keywords: rapid casting technology; rapid tooling; 3D sand printing; sand casting.Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Hackney, P.M. and Wooldridge, R. (201X) '3D sand printing for automotive mass production applications', Int. J. Rapid Manufacturing, Vol. XX, No. YY, pp.XXX-XXX.Biographical notes: Philip M. Hackney is a senior member of the Department of Mechanical and Construction Engineering management team, managing several programmes both at Northumbria and Validated programmes at other HEI institutions worldwide. Hackney first started researching rapid prototyping in 1996, with the development of casting tools from the LOM process and later using the ZCast process awarded him a PhD in 2007, with over 30 published papers and a research group of 6 PhD students under his supervision. His current research interests include shop floor scheduling using genetic algorithms, additive manufacturing of polyurethane foams and sand printing of AM.Richard Wooldridge is currently a PT PhD Student at Northumbria University, following completing an MSc in Advanced Manufacturing Engineering at Loughborough University. He has developed and managed a major automotive Rapid Product Development Centre, at the forefront of commercialisation of industrial applications of AM, for over a decade.This paper is a revised and expanded version of a paper entitled [title] presented at [date/year and place where held].

Abstract:Additive manufacturing (AM) of metallic products is seen by many to be commercially viable for only small and highly complex components, manufactured with difficult to machine materials using heat sintering process. In the automotive manufacturing sector, metal hard tooling is often required to produce mass produced components, and the tools are typically bespoke, large in size, inflexible and complex. Conventionally these tools have either been machined from solid billets or near-net-shape cast and then machined to get final size. Rapid casting technologies (RCT) use AM 3D sand printing process to manufacture sand mould tools used to create the production tooling. Adopters of this technology can achieve an increasingly agile and robust production process, RCT can also rewrite the design hand book for casting design. The research findings demonstrate that RCT can be successfully applied within the automotive industry, achieving considerable cost and time savings whilst improving quality and product flexibility.Keywords: rapid casting technology; rapid tooling; 3D sand printing; sand casting.Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Hackney, P.M. and Wooldridge, R. (201X) '3D sand printing for automotive mass production applications', Int. J. Rapid Manufacturing, Vol. XX, No. YY, pp.XXX-XXX.Biographical notes: Philip M. Hackney is a senior member of the Department of Mechanical and Construction Engineering management team, managing several programmes both at Northumbria and Validated programmes at other HEI institutions worldwide. Hackney first started researching rapid prototyping in 1996, with the development of casting tools from the LOM process and later using the ZCast process awarded him a PhD in 2007, with over 30 published papers and a research group of 6 PhD students under his supervision. His current research interests include shop floor scheduling using genetic algorithms, additive manufacturing of polyurethane foams and sand printing of AM.Richard Wooldridge is currently a PT PhD Student at Northumbria University, following completing an MSc in Advanced Manufacturing Engineering at Loughborough University. He has developed and managed a major automotive Rapid Product Development Centre, at the forefront of commercialisation of industrial applications of AM, for over a decade.This paper is a revised and expanded version of a paper entitled [title] presented at [date/year and place where held].

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