Characterisation of direct 3D sand printing process for the production of sand cast mould tools

Hackney, Philip; Wooldridge, Richard

doi:10.1108/rpj-08-2014-0101

Cited by 36 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…The properties of sand moulds produced by the 3D printers can be controlled by numerous factors during the printing and or curing cycle (for phenolic or ZCast ® moulds). These properties are affected by the characteristics of the sand, the concentration and the type of binder and activator, printing speed (powder recoating speed) [17], job-box co-ordinate and build-orientation of the specimen printed [17,23], and layer [8,24] thickness. It has been found that decreasing the layer thickness and increasing the binder saturation improves the tensile strength but reduces the surface quality [24].…”

Section: Mould Properties and Their Effect On The Cast Metalmentioning

confidence: 99%

3D printing for rapid sand casting—A review

Upadhyay

Sivarupan

Mansori

2017

Journal of Manufacturing Processes

182

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There are many 3D printing technologies available, and each technology has its strength and weakness. The 3D printing of sand moulds, by binder jetting technology for rapid casting, plays a vital role in providing a better value for the more than 5000 years old casting industry by producing quality and economic sand moulds. The parts of the mould assembly can be manufactured by precisely controlling the process parameters and the gas producible materials within the printed mould. A functional mould can be manufactured with the required gas permeability, strength, and heat absorption characteristics, and hence the process ensures a high success rate of quality castings with an optimised design for weight reduction. It overcomes many of the limitations in traditional mould design with a very limited number of parts in the mould assembly. A variety of powders, of different particle size or shape, and bonding materials can be used to change the thermal and physical properties of the mould and hence provide possibilities for casting a broad range of alloys. Limited studies have been carried out to understand the relationship between the characteristics of the printed mould, the materials used, and the processing parameters for making the mould. These deficiencies need to be addressed to support the numerical simulation of a designed part, to optimise the success rate and for economic as well as environmental reasons. Commonly used binders in this process, e.g. furan resins, are carcinogenic or hazardous, and hence there is a vital need for developing new or improved bonding materials.Contents * Corresponding author.

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Section: Mould Properties and Their Effect On The Cast Metalmentioning

confidence: 99%

3D printing for rapid sand casting—A review

Upadhyay

Sivarupan

Mansori

2017

Journal of Manufacturing Processes

182

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“…The particles used in this study are generally relatively coarse, with the particle size of about 70-100 mesh [9] , while the metal powder mentioned above is generally relatively fine. Because the spacing caused by large particles will affect the final recognition accuracy, the finer the particles, generally speaking, the better the recognition efficiency.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sand-bed defect recognition for 3D sand printing based on deep residual network

2021

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The 3D sand printing (3DSP), by binder jetting technology for rapid casting, has a pivotal role in promoting the development of the traditional casting industry as a result of producing high-quality and economical sand molds. This work presents an approach for monitoring and analyzing powder sand-bed images to serve as a realtime control system in a 3DSP machine. A deep residual network (ResNet) is used to classify the defects occurring during the powder spreading stage of the process. Firstly, a pre-trained network was applied as the initial parameter; then it was fine-tuned on the labelled defective sample dataset to accomplish the task, which defines the sand-bed defects induced in the 3DSP processing. Furthermore, the recognition and positioning of sand-bed defects were readily achieved by dividing the sand-bed images into blocks. Experiments show that the fine-tuned network has a 98.7% classification accuracy on the validation dataset of sand-bed defects and 95.4% recognition accuracy for the sandbed images.

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“…The green body could then be postprocessed by pre-heating/sintering, infiltration and baking. Common applications of binder jet printing include: investment casting of metal parts (Utela et al, 2008;Hackney and Wooldridge, 2017;Paasi, 2021) especially for rapid prototyping of component designs; investigating rock mechanics with complex micro-and macro-geometries (Fereshtenejad and Song, 2016); fabrication of ceramics (Maleksaeedi et al, 2014), including scaffolds and grafts for ceramic biomaterials (Mandal and Basu, 2018;Zhang et al, 2014); and building and infrastructure construction elements using locally sourced cementitious materials (Shakor et al, 2019;Tay et al, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…With such a wide range of end-uses of binder jet printing and a growing list of available powder materials, particle dimensions and bonding materials, mechanical and thermo-physical properties of the prints are becoming essential design parameters. In most applications, the functional printed elements must provide adequate mechanical strength, gas permeability, resistance to deformation by heat and reusability/ recyclability (Hackney and Wooldridge, 2017). The mechanical and thermophysical properties of the 3D-printed samples, in addition to print quality, can be tuned by the material selection, particle dimensions, printing parameters and post-processing techniques (Snelling et al, 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The mechanical and thermophysical properties of the 3D-printed samples, in addition to print quality, can be tuned by the material selection, particle dimensions, printing parameters and post-processing techniques (Snelling et al, 2008). However, there is insufficient empirical evidence to support this (Hackney and Wooldridge, 2017;McKenna et al, 2021). To predict the properties of 3D printed designs and to increase the success rate, reduce the cost and environmental impact of the process, there is a need for empirical performance data.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Investigating mechanical and thermo-physical properties of binder jet 3D printed elements using a statistical experiment approach

Seshadri

Ravi

Hischier

et al. 2021

RPJ

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Purpose With a growing list of available materials and processes, the inherent mechanical and thermophysical properties of three-dimensional (3D) prints are important design targets. This paper aims to study the functionality of binder jet 3D printed objects for thermally activated building construction elements and recyclable formwork for concrete structures. Design/methodology/approach Binder jet printed sand samples with various material and post-processing parameters (infiltration and baking) are prepared and studied. Using a statistical experiment design, the mechanical (flexural and compressive strength) and thermal (conductivity and specific capacity) characteristics are quantified. Findings Relative to the unprocessed “green” print samples, post-processing improved the flexural and compressive strength of the samples by factors of 6.9 and 21.6, respectively; the thermal conductivity and specific heat capacity were improved by factors of 7.7 and 1.2, respectively. For the investigated temperature range (20°C–200°C), the “green” prints showed excellent stability while the stability of post-processed samples depended on the infiltrate used. Microscopic images of the microstructures offered evidence to support improvement in the mechanical and thermo-physical characteristics of the 3D printed sand elements. Research limitations/implications The literature review concluded that optimal printing parameters and infiltration under vacuum could further improve the mechanical and thermo-physical properties of the binder jet printed elements. However, both these factors were not explored in this research. The statistical experimental design approach provided more flexibility to choose the number of experiments for a fixed amount of time and resources. However, for future work, a more extensive number of experiments and reproducibility testing for each combination of binder-infiltrate is recommended. Practical implications 3D printing has been identified as a promising opportunity to reduce material usage and improve construction efficiency in the field of architecture and building engineering. The emerging fabrication technologies are further expected to significantly reduce the operational energy of buildings through performance integration, i.e. multi-functional building elements with integrated heat- and mass-transfer capabilities to replace conventional systems. Originality/value This study has quantified the impact of infiltration on the mechanical and thermo-physical characteristics of sand-printed elements and, as such, reports reproducible functional performance maps for sand-print applications. The research demonstrates a way to achieve the desired functional characteristics of 3D prints through combinations of material selection and process/post-processing parameters.

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Characterisation of direct 3D sand printing process for the production of sand cast mould tools

Cited by 36 publications

References 6 publications

3D printing for rapid sand casting—A review

3D printing for rapid sand casting—A review

Sand-bed defect recognition for 3D sand printing based on deep residual network

Investigating mechanical and thermo-physical properties of binder jet 3D printed elements using a statistical experiment approach

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