Kinetics of moisture absorption in mixtures for iron foundry

TL;DR

This paper investigates the moisture absorption process in foundry materials, modeling diffusion behavior to determine key parameters using a simple experimental and analytic approach, addressing challenges of traditional methods.

Contribution

It introduces a straightforward experimental technique and analytic method to accurately determine diffusion parameters in foundry materials, simplifying traditional complex procedures.

Findings

Diffusive behavior dominates moisture absorption in the studied materials.

The method effectively determines diffusion coefficients and moisture concentrations.

Superimposed diffusive processes may occur in some materials.

Abstract

The moisture absorption in granulated materials used in foundry technologies is analyzed. The absorption process has a diffusive behavior mainly. A simple experimental technique, in which the wet weight increment was recorded as the experimental parameter and an analytic method with computing procedure to find the parameters characterizing the process was used. The determination of these parameters by traditional methods is a very difficult task so, very refined and expensive trials are needed. The fitting of the model permits to determine the diffusion coefficient and the moisture concentration in the separation surface between the sample and the environment. The concentration profiles are established for different times. Finally, the possibility of occurrence of superimposed diffusive processes in some materials is analyzed and the diffusion coefficient and the amount of moisture incorporated by each process are calculated.