Title: An experimental investigation of rapid castings produced by ZCast direct metal casting process using the Taguchi method

Authors: Munish Chhabra

Addresses: Moradabad Institute of Technology, Ram Ganga Vihar, Ph-2, Moradabad (UP), 244001, India

Abstract: ZCast direct metal casting is one of the potential rapid casting solutions developed by using additive manufacturing technology. Based on three dimensional printing, ZCast process is used for the production of pattern-less shell moulds for casting of non-ferrous materials directly from the CAD data. This paper presents a statistical analysis of ZCast process in order to experimentally investigate (using Taguchi's method) the contribution of factors such as volume of casting, pouring temperature of different materials and shell wall thickness on the dimensional accuracy (deviation in outer diameter) of the obtained castings. The results were analysed using signal-to-noise ratio and analysis of variance. It was found that only one factor (pouring temperature of different materials) has a significant effect on the deviation in outer diameter of the casting and its percentage of contribution was found to be 73.06%. The factors such as volume of the component and shell wall thickness were found insignificant.

Keywords: 3D printing; ZCast direct metal casting; rapid casting; dimensional accuracy; outer diameter deviation; Taguchi methods; DOE; design of experiments; patternless shell moulds; non-ferrous materials directly; CAD; casting volume; pouring temperature; shell wall thickness; signal-to-noise ratio; SNR; analysis of variance; ANOVA.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMATEI.2015.072209

International Journal of Materials Engineering Innovation, 2015 Vol.6 No.2/3, pp.108 - 129

Received: 13 Feb 2015
Accepted: 26 Apr 2015
Published online: 04 Oct 2015 *

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