Application of digital microscope for prediction of surface quality of castings

The aim of this work is to determine the possibility of using a digital microscope as a non-contact measurement for the surface quality of cores, and thus to predict the surface quality of pre-casted holes and cavities in manufactured castings. In this study, the test cores were manufactured on a laboratory shooting device with a variable shooting pressure in the range from 0 bar up to 10 bar. The effect of shooting pressure on the mechanical properties of the mixture and the relative porosity of the cores (marked as m) were studied with the aim to use this data as tool of the casting surface quality prediction. For the research, standardized cores for the determination of transverse strength were prepared. As the core mixture Resin Coated Sand (RCS) technology was used. The technology of non-contact measurement was selected, which was performed on a Keyence VHX 6000 series optical digital microscope, to evaluate the surface quality of the cores (roughness).