What is Fused Ceramic Sand?
Fused ceramic sand was first developed and popularized at the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century. Although there are many commodity names on the market, as long as it is made of high-quality bauxite (Al2O3 content 65%～85%) as raw material.
The casting sand obtained by arc melting and wind breaking into balls is the category of Fused ceramic sand.
The manufacturing method of fused ceramic sand is to select high-quality bauxite raw materials and melt them in an electric arc furnace. When the molten liquid flows out of the furnace, it is blown away with compressed air flow, and then cooled to obtain spherical or nearly spherical particles with smooth surface. Fused ceramic sand production process: bauxite → simple crushing → arc melting → compressed air injection → screening → mixing → Fused ceramic sand finished product.
Some performance indexes of Fused ceramic sand
The artificial special sand has an approximate spherical particle shape,
The roundness of Fused ceramic sand produced by melting is obviously better than that of special sand produced by other sintering methods. At the same time, due to its large bulk density and high surface hardness, fused ceramic sand has unique advantages as EPC filling sand.
Except that the bulk density of Fused ceramic sand is lower than that of chromite sand, some main thermophysical properties, such as thermal conductivity, thermal expansion rate and fire resistance, are similar to that of chromite sand. In terms of particle shape and crushing resistance, it is much better than chromite sand, but the price is only about 1/2 of chromite sand. The result of comprehensive analysis is that Fused ceramic sand is an ideal substitute for chromite sand.
At present, many large steel casting manufacturers have used Fused ceramic sand to replace chromite sand as surface sand, especially developed "30 mesh + fine powder" Fused ceramic sand as surface sand, and achieved greater economic benefits.
Application of Fused ceramic sand
From the end of the 20th century to the beginning of this century, the popularization and application of artificial special sand for casting, especially spherical artificial sand, has achieved remarkable results. According to rough statistics, the current consumption can reach about 120000 ~ 150000 tons. In this regard, Japanese and American enterprises are leading the world in the development, testing, testing and application of artificial sand. In the development of artificial sand, China has its own innovative achievement, that is, the development of fused blown sand - Fused ceramic sand.
Due to its good comprehensive performance (compared with cerabeads and solar beads at that time) and relative cost advantages, fused ceramic sand has been rapidly promoted and began to be sold to Europe and the United States from Japan. In China, casting experts were the first to introduce the characteristics and application of Fused ceramic sand. Some Japanese funded, Korean funded and joint venture foundries in China were the first to use fused ceramic sand.
The promotion has played a good demonstration role. So far, the demand for Fused ceramic sand is still growing rapidly. In recent years, in addition to Fused ceramic sand, the development and popularization of artificial mullite sand are also very rapid, and they are also applied in different fields.
Due to the outstanding advantages of high refractoriness, good grain shape, low thermal expansion and near neutral chemical properties, all kinds of spherical artificial sand can be applied to almost all areas of sand casting, from wet mold sand to various resin sand, from ordinary sand casting to lost foam casting, V-process casting, from sand mold, sand core to coating, all or part of quartz sand, chromite ore, etc., improve the quality of castings, reduce production costs and improve the environment.
Prospect of Fused ceramic sand
(1) the production of fused ceramic sand should continue to improve the mechanization, efficiency and environmental protection of production mode, ensure the consistency of production and quality, and further study and apply energy-saving technology. We should take advantage of this process to develop some special products with better performance,
(2) within one or two years, the application of various spherical artificial sands will gradually become differentiated and specialized, and foundries will gradually understand the different advantages of various spherical artificial sands and make more rational choices. Manufacturers of artificial special sand for casting should constantly improve the type and quality of products to meet the needs of the development of casting enterprises.
(3) the performance test of spherical artificial sand, including particle shape (alternative index of angle coefficient), crushing resistance and high temperature performance, should be unified and actively promoted as soon as possible.