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Non-Destructive Inspection of Sacrificial 3D Sand-Printed Molds with Geometrically Complex Lattice Cavities

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Abstract

Additive manufacturing is now leveraged to digitally fabricate complex and customized sand molds for castings. Mathematical equations can be employed in design to gracefully vary strut sizings volumetrically within lattices and the corresponding sand molds can be realized with binder jetting additive manufacturing. Consequently, geometrically tailored periodic structures are now castable—not possible previously with traditional sand casting. However, inspecting these 3D-printed molds and cores prior to pouring metal can be dramatically more challenging given the required verification of both (a) the intended dimensions of internal cavity features and (b) the absence of unbound sand within difficult-to-access internal passages (proper cleaning). This work evaluates tapered cylindrical sand cores (100 mm in diameter at the top and 200 mm in height) and each core includes a complex internal cavity that captures the negative of one of four spatially varying lattice architectures. The four lattices were designed with software from nTopology and included strut dimensions that linearly decreased from the top to the bottom of the cylinder. For each of the four lattices, a pair was fabricated (eight cores total) using an ExOne SMAX printer. Each pair included: (a) one core cleaned based on best practices and (b) one core not cleaned leaving unbound sand in all internal passages (as harvested from the binder jetting print box). Cleaning included air blowing and brushing to remove internal unbound sand without damaging the delicately bound structure. Subsequently, X-ray computed tomography (CT scanning) was used to evaluate the cores prior to casting in order to: (a) evaluate the effectiveness of the standard cleaning techniques at removing all unbound sand and (b) verify compliance of inaccessible internal features in comparison with targeted geometries. Unbound sand was clearly identified which if present would indicate the need for additional cleaning. The bound sand was geometrically evaluated and dimensional deviation from the CAD-intended geometries was less than 200 microns in each case.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the Murchison Chair at the University of Texas at El Paso and both the Friedman and Eynon-Beyer Endowments at Youngstown State University for supporting this project. AdP is thankful for financial support from the South African Collaborative Program in Additive Manufacturing.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Youngstown State University, Youngstown, OH, USA

    Brian Vuksanovich, Cameron Gygi & Pedro Cortes

  2. The University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, TX, USA

    Jesus Chavez & Eric MacDonald

  3. nTopology, New York, NY, USA

    Ryan O’Hara

  4. Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa

    Anton Du Plessis

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  1. Brian Vuksanovich
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  2. Jesus Chavez
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  3. Cameron Gygi
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  4. Ryan O’Hara
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  6. Eric MacDonald
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  7. Anton Du Plessis
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Correspondence to Brian Vuksanovich.

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Vuksanovich, B., Chavez, J., Gygi, C. et al. Non-Destructive Inspection of Sacrificial 3D Sand-Printed Molds with Geometrically Complex Lattice Cavities. Inter Metalcast 16, 1091–1100 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40962-021-00681-w

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