FABRICATION OF STIR CASTING MACHINE

Mr. Salman Shaikh Mr. Yadnesh Shinde

Department of Mechanical Engineering Department of Mechanical Engineering
ARMIET, Shahapur-421601, India ARMIET, Shahapur-421601, India

Mr. Ritesh Sarode Mr. Ganesh Pawar

Department of Mechanical Engineering Department of Mechanical Engineering
ARMIET, Shahapur-421601, India ARMIET, Shahapur-421601, India

Abstract: Now-a-days a large variety of heating techniques/furnaces are available. There may be
many method for supplying heat to the work but heat is produced either by combustion of fuel or
electric resistance heating. Taking into consideration the effect of cost, safety, simplicity and ease of
construction we made an electrical resistance heating furnace with indirect heating provisions. The
stir casting furnace has two main parts that enable to perform all its operations, they are: Furnace
Elements and Control Panel. This paper shows the design and fabrication of stir-casting furnace
and aluminium melted and casted to form.
Keywords – Stir casting furnace, design, fabrication, casting, aluminium

I. Introduction:

Casting is a basic manufacturing process in which a metal in solid form is melted in a furnace to
its liquid form and then usually poured into a mould. The mould contains an empty cavity of the
desired shape, and then allowed to solidify. The resulting solidified part is called as casting. Casting is
regularly utilized for making complex shapes that would be generally troublesome or uneconomical to
make by other manufacturing methods like machining or forging etc.
Metal casters and researchers are using wide variety of furnaces for casting purposes. For
laboratory purposes, Reverberator, Hearth, or Crucible furnaces are used. The problem associated with
making alunimium composites using conventional methods is that the composition of final material is
not uniform and properties of metal vary along different sections. This problem is solved by using stir
casting machine in which the mixture of molten aluminium and powder of alloying material is
continuously stirred at a controlled speed and controlled temperature by help of various electronic
devices. This stirring results in better homogenization of mixture and a homogeneous alloy material is
obtained. This alloy material possesses better physical and mechanical properties as compared to alloys
obtained by conventional casting methods.
Our Aim behind making this project is to make a stir casting machine which will be used to
study effect of variations in different process parameters like holding time, stirrer speed etc. on
composition and properties of different Al-SiC alloys obtained. Further this machine could be used for
making better alloys of different combinations of materials like Cu-Zinc, Al-Zinc etc. and compare
them with similar alloys made by conventional casting methods.
II. Block Diagram and description:

Fig 2.1 Block diagram of stir casting machine setup

Construction and working:

The most important part of this setup is the Furnace, Following are the basic logical steps involved in
the design and fabrication of the proposed furnace.
1) Setting the furnace specifications: A furnace of 3.5kW heating capacity was aimed to fabricate. It
must be capable to heat metals to about 1000℃. It enables the furnace to be useful to melt metals
whose melting temperatures fall less than 1000℃. Further, it has to be able to hold the melt at a set
temperature for required amount of time. It must accommodate different sizes of crucibles for melting
various quantities.

2) Preparation of the list of elements and components required for the furnace: A list of items which are
going to be part of the furnace are prepared. The list includes,

i. Furnace bricks
ii. Heating wire (heating coil)
iii. Ceramic wool
iv. Refractory cement
v. Sheet metal cabin
vi. Heat resistant wire
vii. Solid state relay
viii. PID controller
3) Making design calculations: Design calculations need to make to determine the specifications of the
items in the above list. Finally, check weather, it is able to meet the heating specifications targeted in
step – 1. These design aspects are presented in the appropriate subsections.
4) Geometry and layout of furnace: Fix geometry and the layout of the furnace to incorporate the
elements with above specifications in to the furnace.
5) Fabrication of the furnace: Fabricate the furnace, make the electrical connections and complete the
fabrication process.
6)Seasoning of the furnace: Heating the furnace without charge to about 1200 0C, holding for about
1hour and cooling it the lid in its place. This process removes any moisture in the furnace, bricks, etc.,
and fixes the geometry of the coils.
7) Test run of the furnace: Melting the metals to test the performance of the furnace. The following
subsections present the components of the furnace and their design aspect.

III. Proposed working model:

Figure 3.1 Proposed CADD Model of Machine Setup

The workflow in the design and fabrication of the proposed metal melting furnace is shown in the
Figure below.

Figure 2.2. Workflow in the fabrication process of the furnace.

IV. OBJECTIVES:
1. To fabricate a fully operational stir casting machine which will be used to make Al-SiC
metal matrix alloys.
2. To obtain better homogenization of mixture by stirring operation.
3. These alloys will be casted in Standard test specimens to perform various tests to determine
the changes occurring in composition of final alloy & its mechanical properties.
4. Further, the alloys will be tested to determine effects of variations in process parameters
such as holding time, stirrer speed, cooling method, ratio of reinforcement metal to base
metal, stirrer design etc.
5. To keep the cost of making this project as minimum as possible.

IV. COMPONENTS USED:

1. Furnace bricks
2. Heating wire (heating coil)
3. Ceramic wool
4. Refractory cement
5. Sheet metal cabin
6. Heat resistant wire
7. Solid state relay
8. PID controller
V. FABRICATION OF FURNACE :
Step 1:
The first part in the construction of the furnace is the body of the furnace. To work with highest
efficiency the furnace has to produce heat as well as retain it within the walls of the furnace, so that the
heat loss in the furnace is very less. To achieve this, the furnace needs to be as insulated as possible
while being able to withstand the thermal stresses developing within the furnace.
The construction of the body starts with building the furnace frame. The furnace frame is made
of mild steel angle sections weld joined, upon which galvanized steel plates are also welded to form the
body. The plate has an opening cut in the center which will serve to the purpose of placing the crucible
inside and removing it while operating the furnace. This top plate is not screwed to the frame until all
the things inside the furnace are completely built.
 Fig. 5.1 Furnace frame
Step 2:
In order to reduce the thermal conductivity of the furnace after making the frame the inner sides of the
frame plates are coated with an insulating paint as well as lined with thin sheets of soft asbestos. The
use of asbestos sheets and insulating paint greatly improves heat trapping capabilities of the furnace.
After that the inner sides of the frame is lined with insulating bricks made of refractory materials
,which also acts as insulators and traps the heat lost from the coils. Due to use of the refractory bricks
which are remarkably light overall weight of the furnace also decreases which is an advantage to the
furnace and eases the furnace handling and moving. Then a paste is made from ceramic powder, glue
and water which acts as cement for the furnace and hence used for closing the gaps where previously
we had packed ceramic blanket pieces.

Fig. 5.2 Coating Refractory bricks with ceramic cement

Step 3:
The next part in the building is the pot and coil set-up. The pot is made up of ceramic particles and is
heated up to a temperature of 2100⁰C in phases. It is done so that it can get heated up to 2100⁰C and
still remains intact. The pot is an important part of the furnace as the coil is wrapped around it as well
as the crucible is placed inside it. The pot can be made in various shapes and sizes and generally is
made with square cross section, but here the furnace is subjected to top loading so we have taken a pot
of circular cross section.
Step 4:
After making the pot according to requirement (i.e., fixing the pot height depending upon the furnace
size as well as the crucible size), the coil is wrapped around the pot. The dimensions (such as the wire
diameter and length) of the heating wire are determined specific to our furnace requirement and size.
Here we have chosen to go with the APM grade KANTHAL which has the highest temperature range
of heating i.e., about 1600⁰C in the whole KANTHAL family. After that the coil that is obtained from
above said process is wrapped around the pot in a helical manner leaving some of the wire at the ends
along with the hooks. To fix the coil around the pot the top and bottom end of the coil is tied to the top
and bottom of the pot respectively with GI wires and knotted with nose plies. For maintaining uniform
heating around the pot equal distance is maintained between two consecutive lines of the helix around
which the coil is wrapped and the gaps are filled with thin pieces of ceramic blankets.

Fig. 5.3 Wrapping of coil and placing in furnace box.

Step 5:
The top lid of the furnace that covers the opening at the upper side is made with the same galvanized
steel plates as that of the furnace frame. The lower face of the cover has the same opening as that of the
furnace top. Between the two plates of the lid two layers of ceramic blanket are placed and the part of
the blanket coming out of the opening in the lid in the form of a balloon act as the projection of the lid
and covers the furnace opening and therefore complete heat entrapment occurs. The two face of the lid
are screwed shut. On the top of the lid is the locking mechanism for the door / lid. The door is hinged at
the other end with lock screws. Two handles are provided at the two sides to assist the operator in
opening the door.
 Fig 5.4 After fixing the cover
Step 6:
The bimetallic thermocouple is connected to the PID temperature controller through a wire from a
similar porcelain connector below the furnace and joined across the NC circuit of the controller. The
temperature controller analyses the emf generated in the thermocouple to indicate the temperature
inside the furnace. This is how the temperature is controlled in the furnace through the control panel.
The readings from the energy meter, voltmeter, ammeter to calculate the efficiency of the furnace.
Earthing is provided to the furnace to avoid any kind of leakage current in the furnace to ground.

Fig. 5.5 Control panel

VI. Results
Heating performance of the furnace
The furnace was tested by melting aluminium and its alloys. The characteristic curves i.e., heating time
vs. furnace temperature. Initially, the furnace is loaded with aluminium of 0.5 kg, and as the
temperatures were raising, time and temperatures were recorded continuously and characteristic curve
was plotted between them and shown in the Figure below.

Fig 6.1 Heating trend of fabricated electrical furnace.

Usage:
This furnace can be used for melting any metal whose melting points fall below 10000C. All
molten metals forms oxides when react with oxygen in air. So, appropriate precautions, protective care,
accessories and procedures should be employed during melting metals using the above furnace. This
furnace is not suitable for melting metals like magnesium, its melting point is less than 1000℃.
Complete protection of magnesium melt is required from the air.

Fig 6.2 Trial piece casting and its NDT test.

 This furnace is not equipped with such protective accessories. This fabricated furnace was used for
casting trial pieces by sand and die castings like ones shown in Fig. 10. The castings were tested using NDT
Radiography testing. No Sever casting defects were found. So, it can be concluded that the furnace was able
to melt the metal as per the objective. The cost of fabrication was far less when compared with a
commercially available equivalent furnace. The cost of the furnace fabricated is about ₹25,000, whereas the
commercially available furnace cost is about ₹2, 00,000/-. It is about 15% of the cost of commercially
available furnace. The fabricated furnace meets the purpose but may not look attractive like commercially
available furnaces.

VII. Conlusion:
A low-cost metal melting furnace for melting aluminium and its alloys is designed and
fabricated. Both mechanical and electrical parameters were considered in designing the furnace. This
furnace heating suitable for melting and holding small quantities of metals whose melting points are
less than 1000℃ like Al, Zn, and their alloys (except magnesium like metals and alloys) for laboratory
and research purposes. The heating tests were conducted for melting aluminium and furnace heating
performance was analysed by drawing characteristic curve. The heating rate, melting rate are
comparable to existing standard furnaces attaining a temperature of well over 700℃ within 100 min
and melting the first charge in about 100 minutes. Finally, sample sand and die castings were prepared
and tested using NDT radiography testing for casting defects and conformed the lack of defects.
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