Investigation of Chill Performance in Steel Casting Process Using Response Surface Methodology

The carbon steel Ball Valves are having wide application in processing industry based on quality and reliability. These valves are manufactured by advanced casting techniques to meet international standards. This casting technique has critical complication of shrinkage defects in solidification phase and needs improvement. This article investigates the effect of mild steel chills on steel casting in sand mould to minimize shrinkage defects. An experimental study has been conducted on carbon steel WCC (ASTM A216/A 216 M WCC) ball valve body casting using ms chills. In this investigation four parameters are considered namely chill distance, chill thickness, pouring temperature and pouring time to minimize the shrinkage defects. Experiments were conducted based on Taguchi L16 orthogonal array design matrix was developed for our investigation. The analysis was done using statistical tools, analysis of variance (ANOVA) and second order mathematical model was developed using response surface methodology (RSM). This work reveals that chill thicknesses are having significant contribution in solidification to minimize the shrinkage defects.