Abstract
In the present work, an attempt is made to partially replace the high cost silica sand with sustainable eco-friendly material, namely cow-dung. Practical utility of cow dung as a binding and additive material in foundries has been tested in the present work. Taguchi method is used to plan and conduct nine experiments with three replicates each. Pareto analysis of variance study is done to understand the practical significance of moulding sand variables namely percent of cow dung, percent of clay, percent of water, and degree of ramming on sand mould properties. The conflicting multiple objective functions (maximize: mould hardness, and minimize: collapsibility and gas evolution) are optimized by utilizing data envelopment analysis ranking (DEAR) method. The optimal parameter levels i.e. 6% of clay, 4% of water, 5% of cow-dung and 4 numbers of ramming strokes are obtained by applying hybrid Taguchi- DEAR method. These parameters yielded the best moulding properties i.e. mould hardness 55, gas evolution 5.9 ml/gm , and collapsibility 470 g/cm2. Thereafter, Lovejoy coupling made of aluminium is cast in the sand mould prepared with cow-dung and without cow-dung. The sand mould is prepared with the optimum set of parameters and the casting produced in the mould has been tested for its quality characteristics. The mechanical properties, surface finish, and microstructure of the casting made in sand mould with cow-dung are found to be better than that obtained with sand mould without cow-dung. The present research work is found to be more useful in foundries for sustainable production of good quality casting.