What is compressed air blasting?

Blast cleaning of surfaces using various abrasives, with the abrasive being accelerated by means of compressed air when flowing through a nozzle.

Abrasives may be either conveyed out of pressure containers or drawn out of unpressurized containers. Today, the process is applied for surface finishing, for removal of ceramic mold residues in investment casting, and for cleaning of ingots in connection with a blasting chamber that can be remotely controled from outside the chamber.

The advantages of this process result from its flexibility with regard to selection of abrasives and from fast abrasive change. The rather simple system technology only causes relatively low investment costs.

Blasting system

Machine or system especially designed for cleaning castings in foundries.

In the blasting process, compressed air (compressed air blasting), hydraulic fluid (wet cleaning) or centrifugal blasting machines and systems are used to remove adhesive mold particles and core residues from the casting.

The major process is centrifugal blasting which uses the kinetic energy of the blasting agent hitting the surface of the part to be cleaned. The cleaning capacity depends on the amount, grain size, internal composition, impact speed and impact direction of the blasting agent. The power of the centrifugal wheels influences the efficiency and economy of the plant.

The main types of centrifugal blasting machines include drum blasting systems (rotary drum blasting machines, belt shot blasting machines or continuous drum blasting machines), rotary table blasting systems, wire-meshed continuous blasting systems and suspension track blasting systems as well as special-purpose constructions such as manipulator blasting machines.