DESIGNING AND CONSTRUCTING A SAND MOULD FOR SHIP PROPELLER CASTING USING DYNAMIC CENTRIFUGAL CASTING METHOD

Abstract

Propeller manufacturing is an extensive subject, embracing not only many engineering machine shop skills, but also foundry techniques related to the casting of quantities of metal. Furthermore, the skill of propeller manufacturing relies on two factors, i.e. interpreting the hydrodynamic design into physical reality and ensuring that the manufacturing process does not give rise to defects, which could bring about a premature failure of the propeller. This research is based on sand moulding process in producing great and perfect propeller making. The idea is to propose an alternative manufacturing process for ship propeller using centrifugal casting method. The process involves the production of propeller by using sand casting in different ways. In sand casting process, moulding is the most important part that has been applied in order to make the propeller in perfect form. The propeller can be produced using different experimental methods. For the dynamic centrifugal casting method, carbon dioxide sand mould has been chosen because of the hardness of this mould could achieve 97.5 Brinell, which is suitable for this casting method by following the standard set by the American Foundry Society (AFS). Through the experiment conducted, it was found that this sand mould provides great dimensional tolerance and accuracy in the production of propeller, with moisture being completely eliminated from the moulding sand.