Materials Letters 335 (2023) 133750

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Materials Letters
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/matlet

Study on interlayer bonding properties of multi-material composite

cast mold
Dandan Yan a, b, Zhongde Shan c, *, Yong Zang b, Haoqin Yang c
a
China Academy of Machinery Science and Technology Group Co., Ltd, Beijing 100044, China
b
School of Mechanical Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083, China
c
College of Mechanical & Electrical Engineering, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 210016, China

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Multi-material composite cast mold has excellent casting performance, which can produce high quality castings.
Multi-material sand mold The interfacial bonding properties of multi-material composite sand mold were studied and the results showed
Composite materials that the overall strength of the composite sand was increased gradually, the bonding bridge area became larger
Microstructure
and thicker, and the air permeability was improved with the increased proportion of silica sand mass in the
3D printing
“middle layer” sand. The casting properties were improved, the casting microstructure was refined, the casting
cost was reduced, and the amount of adhesive was reduced compared with the silica sand casting.

1. Introduction 2. Experimental method

At present, silica sand was widely used but the other sand materials
were few studied for 3D printing technology [1]. Different sand mate­
rials have different physical and chemical properties, the compressive
strength of ceramic sand is 18 % higher than the silica sand, the
compactness is also higher than the silica sand, and the air permeability
is 25 % higher than the silica sand [2]. The sand mold printed with silica
sand and ceramic sand has higher mechanical properties and excellent
casting properties [3]. The multi-material composite sand mold was
studied by the scholars and demonstrated in Fig. 1(a), multi-material
composite sand mold was made by two or more kinds of sand mate­
rials through appropriate technology, which made the sand mold (core)
have the performance for all kinds of sand materials [4], finally obtained
high-quality castings and realized the control of casting shape and
performance. It avoided the existence of veins defects in cast iron for the
65 % artificial sand and 35 % silica sand with high sand strength and
thermal expansion below 0.7 % at 1000 ◦ C [5]. The composite sand
mold of chromite sand and silica sand can adjust the temperature field of
casting solidification process and improve the microstructure and
macroscopic mechanical properties of casting through typical wheel cast
iron [6–7], which can obtain casting with high quality, high perfor­
mance and excellent structure than the single material casting [8–9].
The multi-material composite sand mold was fabricated by NUAA-
3DP 400 sand printer which based on 3D printing technology.
Different from the previous 3D printer, it had five sand laying openings
and can print five different types of sand materials simultaneously. The
forming principle of the 3D printer was shown in Fig. 1(b). First, the
single or mixed sand material need premix curing agent, the sand laying
and compaction process were carried out through the multi-material
sand laying device, then the furan resin was sprayed through the
printing nozzle to complete the bonding forming of the current layer.
Repeat the sanding printing process until the multi-material composite
sand mold was finished. Sand materials like chromite sand and zircon
sand with better thermal conductivity were used to the casting of the
thin wall and complex structure which can accelerate solidification and
improve the overall performance of the casting. The furan resin is
printed by three gray level, the content of curing agent is 0.25 % and
0.35 % of the mass of silica sand and chromite sand which is 70 /140
mesh. The ratio of mixed sand mold mentioned is the mass ratio of silica
sand to chromite sand in this paper. The composite sand samples can be
seen in Fig. 2(a) were tested on SQS-II intelligent sand strength machine,
the bonding bridge and roughness of sand were observed by Olympus
DSX1000 digital microscope, and the accuracy was measured by blue
light scanner FLIRA615. In this experiment, the microstructure of 3D
printing sand mold was analyzed by CT nanoVoxel-2000. The distance

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: shanzd@nuaa.edu.cn (Z. Shan).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matlet.2022.133750
Received 19 September 2022; Received in revised form 3 December 2022; Accepted 21 December 2022
Available online 24 December 2022
0167-577X/© 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
D. Yan et al.
Fig. 1. Multi-material composite casting/core of an engine by 3D printing: (a) Composite sand of an engine. (b) Sand 3D printing process.
Fig. 2. Performance of the multi-material composite sand mold: (a) Multi-material composite sand mold. (b) Strength performance. (c) Adhesive bridge. (d)
Roughness. (e) Lamellar structure information. (f) Porosity scanning.
between the secondary dendrite arms of A356 aluminum alloy was
observed by OLmPLUS-51 M metallographic microscope.
3. Results and discussion
Traditional sand mold manufacturing method cannot carry out the
integrated manufacturing of multi-material composite casting for the
complex castings [10–12]. Interface bonding position and performance
of multi-material composite casting play an important role in the shape
and properties control of castings. Fig. 2(b) shows the tensile strengths
of the “sandwich” structure sand mold are between 0.358 MPa and
1.671 MPa. With the proportion of silica sand for the “sandwich” layer at
the excessive position of the interface increased gradually, the overall
strength and the bonding bridge area and thickness of the sand mold
increased gradually [13], as shown in Fig. 2(c). Fig. 2(d) shows the
surface roughness gradually increased which effects the forming quality
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Materials Letters 335 (2023) 133750
of the sand mold surface. Fig. 2(e) shows the lamellae structure infor­
mation of the 5:5 and 6:4 mixed sand, and the black is silica sand and the
gray is chromite sand. The whole sand mold can be regarded as the
porous structure which formed by sand grains in a chain-lock bonding
mode, the size and distribution of the porous have strong randomness.
Fig. 2(f) shows the porosity scanning of the 5:5 and 6:4 mixed sand, the
total volume of the porous is 7.82 mm3 and14.44 mm3 separately. The
air permeability of sand becomes better with the increase of silica sand
content and the sand pores mainly affect the air permeability of sand.
On this basis, the multi-material composite sand mold core was
maded by 3D printed, and the forming accuracy is high which the
standard deviation of is 0.4871 mm, as shown in Fig. 3(a). Silica sand
was made to increase the surface strength and permeability of the
composite sand core in the top and bottom layers, as shown in Fig. 3(a).
The silica sand core has small gas volume, high mechanical properties
and air permeability, which plays a supporting role in the printing
D. Yan et al.
Fig. 3. Casting performance of the multi-material composite sand mold: (a) Multi-material composite sand mold. (b) Casting. (c) Secondary dendritic arm spacing of
the casting.
forming of the overall multi-material composite sand mold. The middle
part (high refractoriness, strong chilling capacity) was made of chromite
sand and mixed sand, which can reduce the production of shrinkage
defects in chilling capacity of sand core and the amount of chromite
sand, and then save the cost (chromite sand is four times the price of
silica sand). Sand mold was also the multi-material which matched with
the sand core, upper and bottom sand mold as shown in Fig. 3(a). Fig. 3
(b) shows the A356 aluminum alloy casting of multi-material composite
casting. Fig. 3(c) shows the secondary dendrite arm spacing of multi-
material mold castings made by mixing 60 % silica sand with 40 %
chromite sand is reduced by 17.5 % compared with the silica sand
casting. For the A356 aluminum alloy, the higher solidification rate, the
higher grain nucleation temperature, the higher crystallization under­
cooling and the smaller size of SDAS. The sampling positions of the
casting which corresponded to the muti-material sand of silica sand,
mixed sand and chromite sand respectively were located in the axial
center of the casting, as shown in Fig. 3(b). The sand mixed with
different proportions has different gradient thermal conductivity. The
thermal conductivity of multi-material casting made by mixing 60 %
silica sand and 40 % chromite sand is higher than the silica sand, and the
casting solidification rate is accelerated and the casting microstructure is
refined.
4. Discussion
Sand mold of 3D printing technology can produce multi-material
composite mold fastly and flexibility. With the increase of silica sand
mass ratio, the interlayer composite “sandwich” structure can improve
the bonding performance of the composite casting, the overall strength
of the composite sand mold gradually increases, the area and thickness
of the bonding bridge increase, the total pore volume increases, and the
air permeability is improved. Compared with silica-sand mold, multi-
material composite sand mold can shorten solidification time, refined
casting structure and improved casting properties. In short, the multi-
material composite printing forming process can greatly enrich mate­
rial of sand, produce gradient functional casts, improve casting perfor­
mance, save manufacturing costs, simplify manufacturing process and
shorten manufacturing cycle.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Dandan Yan: Writing – original draft, Methodology. Zhongde
Shan: Data curation, Funding acquisition, Writing – review & editing.
Yong Zang: Investigation. Haoqin Yang: Investigation, Funding
acquisition, Supervision.
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Materials Letters 335 (2023) 133750
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Data availability
Data will be made available on request.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China
(2021YFB3401200); Open Fund of State Key Laboratory of Advanced
Forming Technology and Equipment (SKL2020008).
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