A Casting is a shape obtained by pouring liquid material into a mould or cavity and allowing it to

solidify and thus to take the form of the mould

The mechanism and rate of material solidification involves:
The crystallization pattern and estimation of shrinkage in volume during solidification for calculation
of the risers to be placed and proportioned properly.
Solidification of actual castings:
The solidification of alloys differs in three principal ways from that of pure metals

Usually the freezing of alloys occurs over a temperature range,
The composition of the solid which separate first is different from that of the liquid
There may be more than one solid phase crystallizing from the liquid.