Sand casting is a traditional casting process in which sand is used as the main molding material to make the casting pattern. Sand is generally used for gravity casting, but low-pressure casting and centrifugal casting can also be used when there are special requirements. Sand casting is not only suitable for batch casting of various sizes and complex shapes, but also for metal materials with high melting points, such as copper alloys and ferrous metals.
3DP sand casting has the advantages of short manufacturing cycle, low R&D cost, integrated sand/core manufacturing and the ability to produce any complex shape castings or prototypes without making wooden molds or mold patterns, and can realize overall near-net molding of complex castings.
By using 3DP sand molding method to realize the rapid casting of this product, it has the following outstanding advantages.
(1) Short manufacturing cycle
3D printing technology directly prints sand blocks according to the model, eliminating the process of mold design and processing, which can shorten the construction period by more than two months.
(2) High process flexibility
In the casting development stage, the need to constantly adjust the casting process, mold modification difficulties. 3D printing in the process improvement stage only need to directly modify the sand data, improve the efficiency of process development.
(3) reduce the difficulty of grouping and improve the dimensional accuracy of castings
3D printing can print out part of the sand block of traditional parting, simplifying the grouping scheme of the sand block, while ensuring the dimensional accuracy of castings.
(4) Good permeability and collapsibility of the sand pattern
The sand pattern prepared by using 3D printing technology has high porosity, which is not only easy to clean, but also has good air permeability, solving the choking fire defect, and can directly print hollow sand core to further improve the exhaust capacity.
With the development of 3DP technology, it is gradually recognized, accepted and applied by more and more enterprises. Beijing Longyuan Automatic Forming System Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Longyuan AFS”), a leading 3D printing manufacturer in China, is a motorcycle frame manufactured by a car company. The product has a complex structure, weighs 27KG, and has a thin tube There are many roads and other characteristics, and the casting material is aluminum alloy. Longyuan AFS uses quartz sand material, prints sand molds with AFS-J1600 equipment, and then casts them to deliver finished parts. At present, the supply volume has reached more than 5,000 pieces, and a small and medium-sized trial production scale has been formed.
In the future, more companies, foundries and suppliers will use 3D printing technology to speed up the development and production of new products in their own supply chains, so as to respond more actively to changes in market demand.