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A faulty casting has arrived at your facilitys door. Youre not exactly sure whats wrong
with it, but from what youve heard, youre pretty sure its porosity.
You call your metalcaster. You tell the quality control manager youve got porosity. She
wants to know more.
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Youre stumped.
What you have on your hands is a cavity-type defect. While many kinds of these defects
exist, most buyers and designers of castings know them only as porosity. If you could
just give the quality control manager a more specific defect name, shed know its root
cause and therefore how to fix it.
Dispersed ShrinkageCharacteristic of
cast iron, these cavities are most often
perpendicular to the casting surface,
with depths as great as 0.8 in. (2 cm).
The casting defect is most commonly
caused in iron components by low
carbon content or high nitrogen
content in the melt.
2. Several castings in your shipment are
showing thin bits of metal at the
parting line.
Dispersed Shrinkage
Defect: FlashProjections at the
parting line occur when clearance between the top and bottom of the metalcasting
mold halves is great enough to allow metal to enter and solidify. The metalcaster must
take more care in pattern, mold and coremaking to eliminate flash or remove it in the
cleaning room after pouring.
3. One of your iron castings fractures and reveals smooth, slightly curved facets on the
fracture face.
Defect: Conchoidal or Rock Candy FractureThis defect is characterized by
separation along the grain boundaries of primary crystallization. The resulting
configuration is often compared to the appearance of rock candy. The defect is caused
in steel castings by elevated aluminum and nitrogen levels.
4. Your casting has smooth-walled, rounded cavities of various sizes clumped together
in one area.
Defect:
Blowholes/PinholesThe interior
walls of blowholes and pinholes can be
shiny, more or less oxidized or, in the
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Blowholes/Pinholes
Lustrous Carbon
7. A protrusion of metal is sticking out
of a 90-degree corner of one of your
castings.
Defect: Fillet VeinThese types of
metallic projections can divide an
interior casting angle in half. This
defect can occur when too much
binder in the sand causes a crevice to
form in a mold or core during mold
preparation or casting. The metalcaster
will reduce or modify its binder usage
to alleviate the defect.
Axial Shrinkage
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casting. Rat tails may be accompanied by other projection-like defects. Metalcasters
can alleviate this defect by altering their sand mixture.
14. Your iron casting has spherical particles coated with oxide inside it. The particles
are the same chemical composition as the base metal.
Defect: Cold Shot (Shot Metal)Not to be confused with a cold shut, this defect occurs
when small droplets of metal fall into a metalcasting mold, solidify and fail to remelt
when the remaining metal is introduced to the mold. The defect is caused primarily by
faulty pouring practices, but it also can be influenced by misplaced runners and risers.
Metalcasters can stop the defect from occurring by improving pouring conditions and
protecting the mold openings against metal splashing.
15. Small, gray-green, superficial cavities in the form of droplets or shallow spots
appear on your iron castings.
Defect: Slag InclusionsA reaction between the mold and ferrous metals can cause the
formation of a low-melting slag, which can adhere to the casting surface. When the
inclusions are dislodged during shot-blasting, a rounded cavity is left behind. The defect
is especially common in steels with high chromium contents. The metalcaster will
reduce pouring temperatures and cool the castings in a reducing atmosphere to correct
the problem.
16. Irregular projections crop up on one side of a vertical casting surface near the
parting line.
Defect: Ramoff/RamawayThis defect is characterized by a thickening of the casting in
the vicinity of the parting line or an increase in dimension of a surface parallel to the
parting line. It is caused by improper mold creation (ramming), which has in turn caused
the sand to separate from certain vertical walls of the pattern.
17. Plate-like metallic projections with rough surfaces jut up parallel to the casting
surface.
Defect: Kish Graphite InclusionsThis ferrous casting defect appears as coarse (not
smooth) porosity, filled with graphite. It generally becomes visible upon casting
machining. The defect is caused by an excessive carbon equivalent in the melt, slow
cooling or great differences in section thickness. A redesign on the part of the casting
end-user may be in order to address this defect.
18. Your iron casting shows local accumulations of coarse graphite. The graphite has
moved into the shrinkage cavities.
Defect:
Expansion Scab
Seams or Scars
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