23 COMMUNICATION ISSUE Using Sand Data to Communicate Performance Metrics MICHELLE RING Simpson Technical Services Manager Norican Group ARTICLE TAKEAWAYS: • Understanding compactabiity and conductivity targets • Using sand data to troubleshoot casting issues • Analyzing trends to make higher quality castings There’s an urban legend that back in the day foundry muller operators could taste green sand and determine if the sand needed more clay or water, and if it was properly mulled. Nowadays just about every foundry in North America has automated compactibility controllers attached to their green sand muller to provide this critical information. While it’s great that this function is now automated; have foundries lost touch with the vital signs of their green sand system now that they no longer have a “hand in the sand?” The frequency and way foundries trend and report data vary greatly. While some foundries only look at the data on the screen at the machine, (which means they only see what is happening right now), other foundries export their data into a database to use to track trends. In this article, we will look at trending daily sand data, and how to use results to determine variability in the sand system. Compactability Targets: +/- 3 and +/-1 Proper compactability is critical to making good molds. High compactability can cause excess water, which potentially could result in poor surface finish, gas defects, soft molds, or stickers. Low compactability can cause molds to break and sand inclusion defects. My favorite metric to track is the percentage a foundry is within +/- 3 of their compactability target. When the target compactability is 40, how many times was the measured result between 37-43? The same goes for +/-1 of target. While targets should Continued on next page Example Report illustrating compactability performance.
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