What are the benefits of using 3D printed moulds and cores for sand casting?

3D printed sand casting moulds and cores are changing the way high-performance, large metal parts are made today. Additive manufacturing enables modern foundries to produce complex metal parts quickly and within lead times.

• What is the evolution of 3D printed sand casting?

• What are the benefits of using 3D printed moulds and cores for sand casting?

• What are the reasons for the popularity of sand casting?

What is the evolution of 3D printed sand casting?

sand casting can be traced back to the 1st century BC. Over the centuries, this technique has developed into the industrial process we know it to be. However, the advent of digital manufacturing and 3D printing technology has allowed modern foundries to develop further.

sand casting using 3D printed sand moulds and cores is becoming a key industrial application for additive manufacturing. Until recently, design engineers and foundries used this hybrid manufacturing technology mainly for prototyping. Today, more and more foundries are adopting this manufacturing technology to enhance their internal processes.

The 3D printed sand moulds and cores are prepared directly layer by layer in an industrial 3D printing system using digital files. The print head jets droplets of binder material onto a thin layer of sand to create each cross-section.

What are the benefits of using 3D printed moulds and cores for sand casting?

3D printed sand moulds and cores help to create a rational gating system, allowing the preparation of high performance metal parts with fewer internal defects and parts with up to 15% higher material strength.

Additive manufacturing eliminates the need for process equipment and casting moulds and the associated geometric constraints. This facilitates the production of high-performance, optimised parts with complex geometries.

3D printing and other digital manufacturing technologies help to change the image of traditional foundries and attract young talent and a new workforce to the sector.

What are the reasons for the popularity of sand casting?

sand casting of crusher wear parts is still very common in the market, like jaw plate, liner plate, rolling molar wall, crushing wall, high chrome plate hammer and so on, because in crusher equipment, as a relatively large wear-resistant castings, relatively speaking, the accuracy is not very high, especially such as jaw plate, out of the finished product almost no lathe grinding, crushing wall, rolling molar wall, roller skin and so on only part of the casting places need to be lathe grinding. So it is particularly suitable for sand casting, because sand casting jaws, high chrome plate hammer, crushing wall, rolling molar wall, roller skin, etc. These crushing equipment wear parts than other products such as disappearing  sand casting process more than 20% durable. But disappearing sand casting has high dimensional accuracy, small machining allowance, dry sand drop sand convenient, cleaning and grinding workload reduced by more than 50%, saving labour costs, so the price of disappearing mould casting is relatively low.

Based on its twenty years’ expertise of 3D printing technology and rich experience of casting application on various metal materials, FHZL has launched the 4th Generation sand 3D printer in 2019, which achieves higher printing speed and better printing efficiency, but lower operation cost and maintenance cost.