Energy Conservation in Foundries Using Waste Heat Recovery System

In the present world where there is an exponential increase in the energy crisis, it becomes an immediate necessity for the people to conserve energy. Manufacturing using foundries is a well established process in practice throughout the world. More than 50% of the energy consumed by the foundries is spent in melting the raw materials[18] and this energy goes waste when the molten metal solidifies in sand moulds. In this paper a novel idea is suggested where the heat released on the solidification of molten metal is used to preheat the raw materials. The experiment was done using aluminium and also with cast iron and the results were obtained. This heat recovering capacity was found to vary when the raw materials were insulated and also with the water moisture present in the casting sand. An exhaustive analysis on varying moisture contents was done and the temperature gaining time for the raw materials in each case of moisture levels was obtained. All these experiments clearly showed a considerable conservation of energy of about 10% - 20% of the required melting energy. This when practiced throughout the country it can conserve a large amount of energy which is mentioned in the paper in detail. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.