Energy release and countermeasures for sand casting explosion accidents

Abstract

Sand casting explosion accidents seriously threaten employees' lives and the harmony and stability of society, such as casualties, equipment trouble and environmental pollution. The main purpose of this study was to determine the water requirement for sand casting explosion accidents, and then corresponding safety measures were proposed to prevent such accidents. First, the relationship between the water condition and temperature for such accidents was achieved based on an energy release equation in compressed gas expansion and the ideal gas state equation. The volume of vapor expanded rapidly as the temperature rises, which was also the immediate cause of sand casting expansion accidents. Also, the water requirement for the sand casting expansion accidents decreased rapidly as the temperature rises. Then, a bow-tie model was adopted for preventing the causes and consequences of sand casting explosion accidents. Three main causes were identified, namely molten metal meeting ponding, failure of cavity exhaust and low strength sand of sand mold, and 11 prevention safety measures were adopted to prevent the causes of such accidents. In addition, three consequences were identified, namely casualties, equipment trouble and environment pollution, and ten mitigation safety measures were adopted to mitigate the consequences of such accidents.

Keywords:

• sand casting
• explosion accident
• countermeasures
• energy release equation
• bow-tie model

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant no. 2017YFC0805100) and Basic Scientific Research Program of China Academy of Safety Science and Technology (Grant no. 2017JBKY12).