Optimizing Cold Box Core Making in Cast Iron Foundry: A Sustainable Approach with Taguchi Technique and Desirability Function
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24425/afe.2025.153803Abstract
Sand Casting is the most basic metal manufacturing process. The cast metals are used in almost all sectors, such as automobiles, the aviation sector, etc. Due to the restrictions in the sand mining process and to achieve sustainable manufacturing, it is important to reduce usage and the wastage of fresh sand. However, it is difficult to replace fresh sand in cold box cores due to their properties, such as grain fineness, refractoriness, etc. The present work focuses on studying the effect of a cold box core shooter machine's process parameters on producing high-quality cores with maximum core hardness and minimum gas evolution. It also aims to increase the machine's productivity by decreasing the rejection rate and reducing the cycle time needed to produce cores. For the study, four factors at three levels were selected based on the prior data and also pilot experiments. The L27 orthogonal array of the Taguchi technique was used for experimentation. The desirability function approach is used to optimize both scratch hardness (Core hardness) and gas evolution as they are conflicting in nature; for example, core hardness needs to be maximized, and gas evolution needs to be minimized. It was found that to get maximum Scratch Hardness and minimum gas evolution, resin to hardener ratio must be 0.907, Amine on timer 16 secs, LPP 21 secs, and HPP 65 secs. The present work helped reduce the rejections and also helped achieve the production target with minimum machine runs. It also reduced 200kg of sand wastage, thus moving towards sustainable manufacturing.References
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