ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING AND SAND CASTING FOUNDRIES PRACTICES IN NIGERIA.
ADEFUYE O.A., RAJI N.A., ADEDEJI K.A., FADIPE O.L, OLOWU B.
ETRJ. Vol. 4(1), 20 March, 2019
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Abstract: All over the developed world, the foundries have found additive manufacturing process useful and they have been incorporated into the foundry processes. In the sand casting foundries, they are either used to produce sand moulds or used to produce patterns for sand moulding. The incorporation of the 3D printing has generally been found to increase the accuracy and quality of the castings; it has also lowered the lead time and cost of production. One of our foundries has in-house 3D printing facilities used basically for the production of patterns for sand castings, oddly, as recorded, in this foundry, the conventional method appears to perform much better than the 3D printing. This paper looks at the sand casting practices in Nigeria and concluded that Nigerian sand casting foundries generally have to change from the low tech sand casting practices they are currently engaged in to high tech sand casting practice in order to fully benefit from additive manufacturing
