Industry And Academia Collaboration For A Thermal Distortion Tester For Sand Binder Systems

The goal of this industry and academia collaboration has been the design and development of a prototype Thermal Distortion Tester (TDT) to be used in the foundry industry. This apparatus measures thermal distortion in chemically bonded foundry sands; thus providing the foundry engineer with proper information to reduce dimensional variations in cast parts as a result of thermal distortion in molds and cores. A concept prototype has already been developed and used for initial testing. The thermal properties for various chemically bond sands have been investigated. The sand-binder mixtures selected for this study demonstrate the capability of the developed tester to deal with diverse combinations. The distinctive results obtained confirm that the tester is a valuable tool that can aid the foundry engineer in predicting the behavior of core and mold material in thermo-mechanical applications, thus helping in dimensional control. It is our belief that this collaboration has been a successful one based on the interest in the prototype TDT shown by foundry practitioners and binder manufacturers.