Foundry Sand Facts for Civil Engineers

Vincent D. Reynolds, MBA, P.E.

Course Outline

This course will cover the various types and engineering properties of foundry sand. Several characteristics of foundry sand will be covered such as grain size, shear strength, plasticity, specific gravity and compaction.

This 5 hour course is based on the document “Foundry Sand Facts for Civil Engineers,” published on the website of the Federal Highway Administration.

This course includes a multiple-choice quiz at the end, which is designed to enhance the understanding of course materials.

Learning Objective

At the conclusion of this course, the student would have learned the following:

• How a foundry sand is created;
• The different classes of foundries;
• The structural uses of foundry sand;
• The shape of foundry sand;
• The specific gravity of foundry sand;
• How to determine the quality of foundry sand;
• How to determine the durability of foundry sand;
• Applications where foundry sand is used;
• The range of friction angles for foundry sand;
• How foundry sand is used as base material;
• The optimum moisture density of green sand;
• The typical CBR value of foundry sand;
• The uses of flowable fill mixtures;
• The typical lift thicknesses for foundry sand;
• Characteristics affecting embankment construction and performance;
• Reasons for constructing a road base with foundry sand;
• Engineering properties of foundry sand;
• How to define shear strength of foundry sand;
• How foundry sand can replace fine aggregate in hot mixed asphalt; and
• How ACI defines flowable fill mixtures.

Intended Audience and Benefit

This course is intended for highway engineers, geotechnical engineers, materials engineers, project managers, environmental engineers, any persons working in civil engineering field or anyone with an interest in foundry sand.

Course Introduction

Foundry sand is a byproduct of the manufacturing process that produces metal castings. Foundry sand has many applications in construction such as embankments, roadway asphalt, cement products, and roadway base/subbase among others. There are various engineering properties of foundry sand that are important to civil engineers.

Course Content

This course will cover the various types and engineering properties of foundry sand. Several characteristics of foundry sand will be covered such as grain size, shear strength, plasticity, specific gravity and compaction.

Foundry Sand Facts for Civil Engineers

(http://isddc.dot.gov/OLPFiles/FHWA/011435.pdf)

Please click on the above underlined hypertext to view, download or print the document for your study. Because of the large file size, we recommend that you first save the file to your computer by right clicking the mouse and choosing "Save Target As ...", and then open the file in Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you still experience any difficulty in downloading or opening this file, you may need to close some applications or reboot your computer to free up some memory.

 

Course Summary

The information presented in this course provides a broad overview of the characteristics and uses of foundry sands for civil engineers.
 
Using good engineering judgment is always paramount in any situation. Utilizing good judgment and the knowledge gained in this course will aid the reader with the knowledge to successfully use foundry sand in several applications.

Related Links

For additional technical information related to this subject, please visit the following websites:

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/
http://www.usace.army.mil/
http://www.epa.gov

Quiz

Once you finish studying the above course content, you need to take a quiz to obtain the PDH credits.

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DISCLAIMER: The materials contained in the online course are not intended as a representation or warranty on the part of PDH Center or any other person/organization named herein. The materials are for general information only. They are not a substitute for competent professional advice. Application of this information to a specific project should be reviewed by a registered architect and/or professional engineer/surveyor. Anyone making use of the information set forth herein does so at their own risk and assumes any and all resulting liability arising therefrom.

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