EFFICACY OF VARIOUS MOULDING TECHNIQUES AND SECTION THICKNESS ON MECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF AS-CAST A142 ALUMINIUM ALLOY CASTINGS
Manufacturing/fabrication in other casting processes are limited by wall-thickness and design. Producing a complicated inner structure by using lost cores, is still not economically feasible in these processes. This study aimed at the efficacy of different moulding technique and section thickness on mechanical properties of A142 Alminium alloy casting. The A142 Aluminium alloy was produced using green, dry and loam sand mould castings at the foundry shop of department of metallurgical and materials engineering Ahmadu Bello University Zaria (ABU). The alloy was cast into cylindrical bars of 12, 14, 16, 18 and 20mm diameter and 300mm by length each. The as-cast bars were cut and machined to standard tensile, impact and hardness test specimens. It was found that both tensile and impact strength properties decrease as the section size increases. While the hardness slightly increases with the section thickness. A142 alloys produced in dry sand mould have the highest tensile strength while alloys produced from green sand mould have the highest impact strength and A142 aluminum alloys produced in loam sand have the highest hardness. The overall result showed that the moulding techniques and section thickness had influence on the mechanical properties of the cast metal. It is therefore recommended that, before any sample should be subjected to any service, different test on such samples are required, and this is to avoid being deserved by the physical properties of such sample such as a shape, size, volume and dimensional accuracy. And further work should be carried out on the effect of moulding techniques and section thickness on the corrosion and various heat treatment on the A142 aluminium alloy.
Authors : Abdulhamid, S., Ahmad, U.M., Dodo. S.M. and Abdulkadir, S.A.
Category : Open Access Volume (Issue) : 10(2) Date Uploaded : 7th July 2024