Title

Sand Testing Preparation (Green Sand)

Objective
This experiment measures the following properties of molding sands, green compression strength
and permeability.
Introduction
Green Compression Strength
Green compression strength refers to the stress required to rupture the sand specimen under
compressive loading. The sand specimen required to rupture the sand specimen under
compressive loading. The sand specimen is then taken out of the specimen tube and is immediate
(any delay causes the drying of the sample which increases the strength) put on the strength
testing machine and the force required to cause the compression failure is determined. The green
strength of sand is generally in the range of 0.03 to 0.16 Mpa.
Permeability
The rate in cc/min at which air will pass through the standard compression specimen is used as
an index of permeability Standard permeability is determined by measuring the time necessary
for 2000

of air to pass through the standard specimen while it is confined in the specimen

tube and under a pressure of 10 gm/

be calculated from the formula:

. If the time is determined the permeability number can

P = (V.H)/(.A.T)
Where :
V = volume of air
H = height of sand specimen
P = pressure
A = cross sectional area of the sand specimen
T = time in sec for 2000

air to pass through specimen

The formula reduces to AFS Permeability:

P=

for old machine working with Hg

The formula reduces to AFS Permeability For Ridsdale-Dieter:

P=

Apparatus
Materials:
Silica Sand, Coal Dust, Bentonite, Water
Equipment:
Permeability Machine, Sand Rammer, Universal Sand Strength Testing Machine
Hand Tools:
Specimen Tube, Ruler
Industrial Apparatus
Procedure
1. Since the strength of a molding sand depends greatly on its degree of ramming, the
condition of molding the standard test sample must be carefully controlled.
2. The sand (6.375 to 7.25 kg) is placed in the specimen tube and rammed by impact with
three blows of a standard weight.
3. The ramming device is manually operated and the weight is dropped from a height of
50.8 +- 0.125mm.
4. Three rams should produce a specimen 50.8 +- 0.8mm in height and to produce this size
of specimen usually sand of 145 to 175 g would be required.
5. To obtain the height, the weight of the sand should be adjusted. Specimen weight in
grams, multiplied by 0.97x

gives the bulk of the sand.

6. The specimen is removed from the tubes by means of a stripping post.

Discussion
From this experiment, we determined the values of permeability for green sand for different
quantity of mass in order to get the desired green compression strength and permeability. Firstly,
according to the experiment in order to obtain a sand specimen with a height of 50.8 mm, the
range of sand weight would be between 145 g to 175 g. So, the range is divided into three values
of 145 g, 165 g and 175 g. For these values of weight, none of them manage to acquire the
desired height. Hence, a calculation is done and resulted that a specimen with a mass of 147.05 g
would have a height of 50.8 mm. This value is proven to be true when it is being experimented
according to the prepared procedure.
As for the permeability section, the readings were done three times to observe any
changes that might present while the experiment is performed. However, a small number of
differences seemed to appear in the readings where significantly all of them resulted an increase
in values. This means that, the permeability did increase and more air can pass through the sand.
For this matter, the reason that might contribute to this changes is that the volume of air that
passes through the sand slowly dries the amount of water in the green sand composition. It is said
that the water in the green sand composition dries more and more after each permeability test.
That is why, the permeability value keeps increase from the first reading to the third reading.
As for the third value of green sand specimen, which refers to 175 g, the permeability is
much lower as the composition of water in it is much higher making harder for air to pass
through it. As observed, for the first two sample of sand taken for the specimen, the sand is taken
from the surface of the container and the sand itself is exposed to dry air that able to dry up some

of the moisture in the green sand composition. As for the third sample of sand specimen, the
sand is taken deeper from the container and believed to have more moisture compared to the
sand at the surface of the container. So, as this can be seen, the moisture of sand differs from the
surface to the inside. The inconsistency of moisture presence in the green sand composition do
related with condensation factor. This do affected the permeability and strength values
throughout the experiment. Higher moisture will cause the specimen to have low permeability.

Conclusion
As observed in the discussion above, it is determined that there are several factors present
causing errors in readings of the data. It starts from the sand pored into the funnel directly to the
test tube. While doing this, some of the sand will stick at the funnel and the accuracy of mass is
totally reduced. Next, when it is being rammed in the rammer machine, the same thing happens
where a small number of sand will also stick at the head of the rammer. Again, the mass of the
specimen will be reduced. Even the loss of sand due to these processes is very little but it still
affected the whole process especially in terms of sand volume. Since the volume drops, thus the
dimension of the specimen required will not be accurate. So, the desired height of 50.8 may not
be achieved. For the next process which is the permeability, the value of permeability did
increase as the volume of air flows through the sand specimen dries it up slowly and causing the
sand specimen to be drier and more air can pass by it.
For the green sand compression strength, a machine is being used to test the specimens
strength. The only specimen that undergoes this particular test was the 147.05g specimen which
states an accurate reading of 50.8 mm in height. The specimen is tested until it started to break
apart. According to the lab assistant, the permissible load that this specimen could hold is up
until 60 MPa. However, this specimen started to crack when it reached the value of 58 MPa.
Even so, this specimen managed to undergo loads up to 70MPa.

Recommendations
In order to enhance the result for this particular experiment, the green sand need to be more
equally mixed with adequate water. Excessive amount of water would make the sand harder in
uniformly condensed even in a short while. One more important thing is that, when placing the
sample of specimen sand in a container, it must be often mixed equally to make sure that they are
well prepared and the moisture would be uniform.
References
1. Degarmo, E. Paul; Black, J T.; Kohser, Ronald A. (2003), Materials and Processes in
Manufacturing , 9th edition, Wiley
2. Todd, Robert H.; Allen, Dell K.; Alting, Leo (1994), Manufacturing Processes
Reference Guide, Industrial Press Inc
3. Rao, T. V. (2003), Metal Casting: Principles and Practice, New Age International
4. Ravi, B. (2005), Metal Casting: Computer-Aided Design and Analysis, 1st ed., PHI
Publisher
5. C. Ammen, The Complete Handbook of Sand Casting, 1st edition, Paperback
Publication, pg 125