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Aluminum alloy sand casting

In 2003, the gravity casting business of Zhonghuan was officially launched, and aluminum sand casting was simultaneously deployed, opening the road to professional and large-scale casting development. After more than 20 years of intensive cultivation and iteration, the company has now built 11 green sand casting production lines and 1 resin sand casting production line, forming stable and efficient batch manufacturing capabilities. It can undertake various aluminum alloy sand castings weighing from several kilograms to hundreds of kilograms. The maximum molding weight of a single piece reaches 200 kilograms, meeting the needs of large-size, structural parts and customization.

Relying on mature technology and stable production capacity, aluminum sand castings are widely used in high-end equipment fields such as automobiles and trucks, ships and oceans, engineering machinery, new energy equipment, impellers and robots. With stable quality and consistency, our products are exported to markets in North America, Europe, Africa and Southeast Asia, and we have become a trusted aluminum alloy casting partner for global customers.

The company's core competitiveness lies in its full-process mold design and independent manufacturing capabilities, from mold development, process finalization to mass production closed-loop control, to achieve the dual advantages of stable quality and delivery efficiency. The current standard delivery cycle can be stably controlled within 2 weeks, which is significantly better than the industry standard of 3-4 weeks, providing strong support for customers to respond quickly, reduce costs and increase efficiency.

In terms of process guarantee, we adhere to the dual track of experience and digitalization. For aluminum sand castings with different structures, senior casting engineers relied on long-term practice to accurately optimize the design of the gating system, exhaust channels and risers, and predict and eliminate common defects such as shrinkage cavities, porosity, and cold shut in advance.

With 23 years of ingenuity, digital process empowerment and full-chain quality control, the company continues to delve into the field of aluminum alloy sand casting and is committed to becoming a high-performance, fast-delivery, and reliable aluminum casting manufacturing and solution service provider preferred by domestic and foreign customers.

图片名称

What is sand casting?​

Sand casting (called sand foundry in ancient times) is an important technological invention in ancient China. It originated in the Northern and Southern Dynasties. It was used on a large scale to cast money in the Tang Dynasty and is still used today. It is the basic thermoforming process that supports modern manufacturing. This process uses molding sand as the core modeling material, pouring molten metal into the sand mold to form, and is suitable for complex structures and multi-material castings. More than 80% of castings in the world are produced by sand casting.

Sand casting has a wide range of applications and can produce ferrous metal castings such as cast iron and cast steel, as well as most non-ferrous metal castings such as aluminum and copper alloys. The mainstream process is divided into two categories: green sand casting (clay sand) and resin sand casting: Green sand is prepared with molding sand, clay and water, which has low cost, good reusability, and efficient mold making. It is the mainstream process in the industry; resin sand is solidified and molded with a chemical binder, which has higher dimensional accuracy, better surface quality, lower risk of defects, and a relatively higher overall cost.

Relying on mature technology and material systems, sand casting is versatile, economical and flexible. It has long been the core basic technology of equipment manufacturing and is widely used in high-end manufacturing fields such as automobiles, engineering machinery, ships, new energy, and robots.

Preparation for aluminum alloy sand casting

◉ Mold and core box making

Make molds and sand core boxes according to the design requirements of aluminum sand casting. Molds and core boxes can be made of wood, plastic or metal. The mold is used to make the lower and upper boxes of the sand mold, and the sand core box is used to make the sand core.

◉ Sand prefabrication

The mold material for sand casting is mainly composed of molding sand and binder. The molding sand is mainly divided into two types: green sand and resin sand. Green sand consists of molding sand, clay and moisture and is the most commonly used process in sand casting; resin sand consists of molding sand and a synthetic binder that is physically and chemically cured.

◉ Sand core preparation

The sand core is made by manually filling the resin sand into the sand core box. After the sand core solidifies, the sand core box can be opened to take out the sand core. The sand core is inserted into the sand mold to form the internal structure of the casting.

◉ Metal smelting

Aluminum alloy is melted in a smelting furnace. The purpose of the smelting process is to obtain pure molten aluminum alloy with qualified chemical composition and suitable pouring temperature.

10 steps for aluminum alloy sand casting

01

Form and process design

02

Made in boxes

03

Carton production

04

Sand core preparation

05

Trimming of mold removal and pouring systems

06

Fitting and fastening

07

Aluminum smelting and refining

08

Pouring and filling

09

Cooling, solidification and shakeout cleaning

10

Post-processing and finished product inspection

Advantages and limitations of the sand casting process

-- Sand casting process advantages

1. The cost of molding materials is economical, the molding sand can be recycled and reused, and the overall manufacturing cost is lower.
2. The production model is flexible and can meet the needs of single-piece customization, small batch trial production and medium-scale mass production.
3. The mold development cycle is short. Compared with high-pressure die-casting, low-pressure die-casting, gravity casting and other processes, the initial investment is less and the production is faster.
4. Outstanding forming ability, suitable for manufacturing aluminum alloy castings with complex appearance structure, large outline size and high unit weight.
5. The material has strong adaptability and is compatible with a variety of aluminum alloy grades. The product applications cover many industrial fields such as automobiles, engineering machinery, new energy, ships, and robots.

-- Limitations of aluminum sand casting process

1. The degree of automation of traditional processes is limited, the degree of manual participation is high, and the working environment and labor intensity are relatively outstanding.
2. The dimensional accuracy and surface finish of castings are slightly lower than those of die casting, precision casting and other processes, and some castings require subsequent machining to improve quality.
3. Affected by manual modeling and material characteristics, it is more difficult to control the consistency of castings, and the scrap rate of traditional processes is relatively high.

Material range of our aluminum sand castings​

• National standards (GB/T standards): ZL104, ZL101A, ZL102
• International standards (ISO standards): EN AC-42100, EN AC-44200, EN AC-44300
• American Society for Testing and Materials standards (ASMT standards): A356, A360, A413​
• Japanese standards (JIS standards): AC4C, AC3A, AC4B
• British Standard (BS Standard): LM6, LM9, LM25​
• French standards (NF/EN standards): A-S7G, A-S13, A-S9G
• Russian standards (GOST standards): AJ19, AJ19-2, AK9

 

Material

China (GB/T)

International Standards (ISO)

USA (ASTM)

Japan (JIS)

Germany (DIN/EN)

UK (BS)

France (NF/EN)

Russia (GOST)

Italy (UNI/EN)

India (IS)

Cast aluminum alloy

EN AC-42200

A319.0

≈AC4CH

EN AC-42200

LM27

A-S9G

АЛ11

EN AC-42200

A319.0

Cast aluminum alloy

ZL101A

EN AC-42100

A356.0

AC4C

EN AC-42100

LM25

A-S7G

АЛ9

EN AC-42100

A356.0

Cast aluminum alloy

ZL111

EN AC-43300

A380.0

≈AC4D

EN AC-43300

LM24

A-S12G

АЛ13

EN AC-43300

A380.0

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