PROCESS OPTIMIZATION AS A TOOL IN THE ANALYSIS OF STEEL CASTING DEFECTS By Dr.Hathibelagal Roshan Chief Metallurgist

Several technical papers are available on casting defects in the literature. However, quality costs in steel foundries are still mainly due to the rework and scrap related to casting anomalies, which are not acceptable to customers. In order to minimize the castings which do not meet the customer acceptance specifications, it is not only necessary to identify the process parameters related to the specific defects, but also it is necessary to identify the levels of these parameters to produce acceptable castings. Metal casting process has several sub-processes, which in turn have a number of process variables, which could influence the occurrence of defects in castings. Conventional statistical techniques with design of experiments involves too much work for the foundries to identify the process variables and their levels responsible for the defects. The use of a process optimization tool which uses foundry production data that can be collected on the castings on a regular basis in the identification of the process variables and their levels will be presented and discussed in this paper. This is useful in converting production data into actionable information that leads to minimization of quality costs in steel foundries.