Mechanical Property (Tensile Strength) Evaluation of Sand and Die Casting Motorcycle Clutch Handles

Full Length Research Paper

Mechanical property (tensile strength) evaluation of sand and die casting motorcycle clutch handles

1*Ejiko, S.O., 2Ukachi, P.A. and 3Abegunde, A.J.

1,2,3Department of Mechanical Engineering, The Federal Polytechnic, Ado-Ekiti.

Accepted 13 February, 2020

Strength is the tensile stress a specimen original cross-sectional area can withstand without fracturing based on its subjected load. The major components of automobile are castings made by foundries. The automotive casting strength in Nigeria is highly required to establish their dependability. The much preference of imported foundry automobile castings to indigenous castings is not much far from fear of quality. There is a pressing need to know the quality of every casting before use or sent to the market in order to ensure safety and non failure in service. This work highlights the procedure of sand and die casting process in the production of motor cycle clutch handle and the determination of the tensile strength of each casting. The results of the samples tensile strength shows that the clutch handles produced by sand casting has higher strength than that of die casting. Sand casting is therefore recommended for clutch handle production with aluminium alloys for improves mechanical properties.

Key words: Casting, clutch, ductility, foundry. strength, tensile.

INTRODUCTION

Strain is a measure of the amount of stretch of tensile strength, yield strength and ductility of the compression along a material normal strain, or amount of material. Ultimate Tensile Strength (UTS) is the distortion associated with the sliding of layers within a maximum tensile stress by the specimen defined as the material shear strain (Middlehoek and Audet, 1994). maximum load divided by the original cross-sectional Strain measurement is a key element of materials testing. area of the sample, which is derived during tensile test. The physical properties of materials are usually Castings are products of the foundry industries represented by stress-strain curve and knowledge of the manufactured in a single step from liquid metal without stress-strain curve allows engineers to compare different intermediate operations of mechanical working such as materials and predict the behavior of a part or structure rolling or forging (Peter, 2001). It is found that the limited made from a particular material (stiffness and failure number of foundries currently operating in Nigeria can strength) during processing operations, (pressing, forging hardly satisfy one-third of the nation’s requirements in and during design). Strain measurement also play a vital castings and that in spite of this, the existing foundries role in low-cycle fatigue testing that is used to determine work only up to 55% their installed capacity the durability of materials subjected to alternating strains (Barberopolous, 1995). Foundry castings played a major during service, examples include parts of an engine role in the industrial revolution and remains the basis of (Ejiko and Olakolegan, 2018). In determining the strength current manufacturing equipment and manufactured that is directly proportional to the strain requires tensile goods and plays an important part in aerospace testing. component production and as such remains at the Tensile test is a destructive test carried out on leading edge of technology development. (Clegg, 1991). engineering materials that provide information about the The foundry industry in Nigeria is much older than the history of iron melting and casting itself and can be traced back to NOK culture of 2,000 years ago in the middle-Belt area of the country (Azodo, 2006). *Corresponding author’s e-mail: [email protected]. In the Foundry Chronicle of March, 1994, it was also

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revealed that the bronze casting practiced by the Binis for and blown with below. The pattern is raped and over 1,000 years, in the south west plains. It is also a well withdrawn from the mould. The ingate and pouring funnel known historical fact that Ife has a famous bronze are cut. The moulds are placed in the oven and dried civilization and Bida has its decorative brass works as correctly as shown in plate 1 bellow. well as fire-arms smelting at Awka (Olorunfemi, 1995). Presently, the foundry industry in Nigeria, despite its early start is still in infancy. The importance of foundry industry to the economy cannot be overestimated. Several works have been carry out on aluminum alloy sand, die and other casting methods by Li et al., 2004; Karl, 2005, Timelli and Bonollo, 2010; Oji and Pamtoks, 2007; Ejiko et al., 2009 and Ejiko et al., 2015. These includes parameters controlling the performance of aluminum alloy tensile properties, quickest and least expensive route to a near shape product, influence of chromium content on microstructure and mechanical properties of die casting alloys, optimizing the effect of sand casting process parameters on the mechanical properties of aluminium alloy part, optimization of production units of a foundry shop using linear programming method and matlab program respectively. The results of aluminium alloy products tensile strength are considered to ascertain the dependability of the clutch handles produced by sand and Plate 1: Moulds placed in the oven for drying. die casting.

SAND CAST SPECIMEN MOULDING

MATERIALS AND METHOD Circular patterns from which the tensile test specimen is

to be machined are placed on already rammed drag. The The materials and equipment used are Aluminum scrap, cope is placed on the drag and rammed gradually, till the moulding sand, Betonite powder, cast iron scrap, talc, mould is full. The patterns are withdrawn. The cope is wooden patterns, parting sand, Diesel fuel, LNG gas, opened and the ingates cut appropriately. The molds are water, sand paper, shovels, Trowels, Spoon tool, vent placed in the oven and dried. The mould is covered and wire, flat/peen rammers, Head pan, sprue cutter, sieve, cast as shown in plate 2 bellow. water can, Hacksaw, files, moulding box (Cope and

Drags); Crucible furnace, flame fast crucible furnace, blow lamp, oven, universal digital tensile testing machine, Vickers-hardiness machine, muller mixer, thermocouple, Grinding machine and lathe machine.

MOTORCYCLE CLUTCH HANDLE MOULDING

Suitable foundry sand is fetched and sieved with 2.36mm size of sieve. The sand is mixed properly in the muller mixer with correct proportion of bentonite and water. The pattern of the motorcycle clutch handle is placed on the moulding board. Drag is placed on it; molding sand is filled and rammed gradually till the mould (drag) is full.

The drag is turned and smoothened with trowel. The loose sand is blown away with bellows. Parting sand is Plate 2: Sand cast specimen mould already cast. sprinkled on the face of the mould. Cope part of the mould is placed on the drag. Runner peg is placed near the pattern in the cope. Moulding sand is filled into the DIE CAST OF ALUMINUM CLUTCH HANDLE cope and rammed gradually with peen rammer till the mould is full. The mould is leveled, and vented The die mould in cast iron which has already been appropriately. The runner peg is withdrawn. The cope is produced through investment casting process is cleaned opened from the drag. The face of the mould is brushed and pre-heated. The dies in male and female are

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clamped and position for the molten metal of aluminum MACHINING OF SPECIMEN alloy to be poured into it. The machining operation of the tensile specimen of A1 DIE CAST SPECIMEN CASTING and B1 was carried out on the lathe machine with the above dimensions for sand and die casting as shown in An already prepared circular die in cast iron is cleaned figure 1. The chalk of the lathe is designed to hold and and clamped together after it is pre-heated up to about rotate the work piece while the lathe cutting tool moves 50oC. The die is positioned properly so as to receive the along the surface of the work piece. The cutting tool was molten aluminum alloy as shown in plate 3 bellow. moved in the direction to perform basically operations of the tensile specimen as shown in plate 5.

Figure1: Tensile Test Specimen with Dimensions

Plate 3: Die cast mould clamped ready to be cast.

MELTING AND POURING

Oil melting furnace of the pit crucible type is lighted and pre-heated with diesel fuel. Aluminum alloy from scraps are broken into smaller pieces as to enter into the crucible, it is heated to 660oC till the metal get melted. It is heated to casting temperature as shown in plate 4.

Plate 5: Tensile test specimen been machined.

TENSILE TEST

Tensile test-piece was prepared from the as-cast sample to ASTME-8 standard and these were subjected to a load

from an Instron Universal Tensile machine (model 3369) Plate 4: Furnace being heated to casting temperature. manufactured by Instron USA in 2007. The load- extension results obtained from the cast was used to generate the true stress and true strain relationship. The following are cast from the same aluminum alloy.

1. Motorcycle clutch handle in sand RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS 2. Sand cast specimen 3. Die cast of aluminum motorcycle clutch handle The result of the tensile test carried out on the specimen 4. Die cast specimen. of sand cast and die cast are as shown bellow.

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Figure 2: True Stress against Strain for Sand Casting

Figure 3: True Stress against Strain for Die Casting

The tensile test result of true stress against true strain for The tensile test result of true stress against true strain for sand cast specimen A1 shows that the load applies to the die cast specimen B1 shows that the load applied to the specimen reached 3020.6N as the peak load, the specimen reached 2775.4N as the peak load, the specimen has peak displacement of 5.98mm. At the load specimen has peak displacement of 3.31mm. At the load of 2010.4N got broken at displacement of 12.65mm of 2755.8N got broken at displacement of 3.38mm which which indicates that the break load for the specimen is indicates that the break load for the specimen is 2775.4N 2010.4N and has an eng. UTS of 125.3N/mm2 and True and has an eng. UTS of 116.8N/mm2 as against 230 UTS of 144.8N/mm2 as against 170 N/mm2 (MRT casting, N/mm2 (MRT casting, 2015) of BS:1490 1988 LM9 alloy 2015) of BS:1490 1988 LM9 alloy sand castings The die castings with a true slop of 1384.3N/mm2. The result True slope is 804.6N/mm2. attained implies that the die casting process will require

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modification of its procedure to improve the tensile Ejiko, S.O., Adu J. and Ajewole P. (2015); “Optimization of Production properties. Units Using Matlab Program: a case study of the Federal Polytechnic, Ado-Ekiti Foundry Shop” A paper presented at the Faculty of Technology International Conference, Obafemi Awolowo University Ile-Ife, Osun State. pp. 195 - 200. CONCLUSION Ejiko S.O. and Olakolegan O.D. (2018): “Design and Construction of Indigenous Strain Gauge Equipment” IOSR J. Mechanical and Civil Engine. (IOSR-JMCE) 15(2): 49-59 www.iosrjournals.org From the production, test and investigations into the Ejiko, S.O., Ukachi, P.K. and Ajewole P. (2009); “Optimisation of properties of the aluminum alloy motor cycle clutch Production Units of a Foundry Shop using Linear Programming”, A handle cast by sand and die casting process, it can be paper presented at the 5th Eng’g Forum, School of Engineering, The deduced that both process are suitable for the production Federal Polytechnic, Ado-Ekiti, pp 98-101 Karl, B. (2005); “Metal Casting”, Quickest and Least Expensive Route to while sand casting process will give casting with higher a Near Shape Product. Reference Book for MY4130. Materials ductility fine finish, strength and will prevent sudden Science and Engineering Department, Michigan Technical University, failure in service. USA, 2005, pp 150-165. Li, Z., Samuel A.M., Samuel F.H., Ravindran C., Valtierra S. and Doty H.W. (2004); “Parameters controlling the performance of AA319- typealloys” Part I. Tensile properties. Elsevier J. Materials Sci. RECOMMENDATIONS Engine. 367: 96-110. Middelhoek, S. and Audet, S.A (1994); “Silicon Sensors,” Delft Having completed this work successfully, it is University of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering. (Delft: Delft University Press) Lecture et 05-31 recommended that sand casting process be adapted in MRT casting, (2015); “Mechanical Properties of Aluminium (Sand and aluminium alloys production. The use of metal scraps in Die Casting) Alloy LM9” www.mrt-castings.co.uk retrieved on the 26th foundry as raw materials is encouraged because the of November, 2015. scraps have good qualities. The exportation of metal Oji, J.O. and Pamtoks S.H. (2007); “Optimizing the Effect of Sand Casting Process Parameters on the Mechanical Properties of an scraps is abolished so as to have enough metals as raw Aluminium Alloy Part”. Unpublished HND Project Submitted to the materials for our local foundries. More research work Department of Mechanical Engineering, The Federal Polytechnic should be carried out in die casting production so as to Bauchi. improve the mechanical properties. Olorunfemi, A. (1995); “Foundry Chronicle”, Foundry Association of Nigeria (FAN). pp 1-5. Peter, B. (2001); “Foundry Technology”, Butterworth-Heinemann Linacre House, Jordan Hill, Oxford, Ox 28DP. 225 Wildwood, REFERENCES Avenue. Timelli G. and Bonollo F. (2010); “The Influence of Cr Content on the Agboola, J.B. (2008). “Present and Future Prospects of Automobile Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of AlSi9Cu3(Fe) Die casting” Industry in Nigeria. p.4. Casting Alloys”. Elsevier J. Material Sci. Engine. 528: 273-288. Azodo U.C. (2006); “Machine Components Manufacture for Small and Medium Scale Enterprises: The PRODA Foundry Experience” Proceedings of the 23rd Annual Conference of Nigeria Metallurgical Society (NMS) P45 Baberopolous R.V. (1995) “Foundry Chronicle”, Foundry Association of Nigeria (FAN).. pp. 21-24 Clegg, A.J. (1991); “Precision casting Processes” Perganem Press, Oxford New York. Beijing, Frankfurt seoul Sydney. Tokyo. pp 10-15