METHODING DESIGN IN SAND CASTING, HEURISTIC RULES OF METHODING

DESIGN IN SAND CASTING: A REVIEW

Adil Mohamed Elbasheer Ahmed1 and Mohamed Ibrahim Shukri2

1
Faculty of Engineering, Blue Nile University.
2
Faculty of Engineering & Technology, Nile Valley University

Received May 2012 accepted after revision Feb 2013

‫ســتَ ْخـلـَص‬
ْ ‫ُمـ‬
‫ هذه الىرقح ذخص ذجميع‬.‫ذصميم المصثاخ والمغذياخ من العناصز المهمح إلنراج مسثىكاخ خاليح من العيىب‬
‫ القىانين اسرخلصد من خثزاخ المهنذسين‬.‫القىانين االسرنثاطيح لرصميم المصثاخ والمغذياخ في السثاكح الزمليح‬
‫ عناصز‬:‫ القىانين الرجزيثيح قسمد إلي قسمين‬.‫والخثزاء وجمعد من المزجعياخ المعزوفح في هذا المجال‬
‫ هذه القىانين نظمد ورصذخ تطزيقح لرسهيل اسرخذامها إلنراج مسثىكاخ عاليح‬.‫منظىمح الصة والمغذياخ‬
.‫الجىدج واقرصاديح‬
Abstract
The design of gating and risering, or rigging systems as they are sometimes referred to,
has been a very important task in producing good quality castings. This paper presents
a compilation of common heuristic rules that are used for designing rigging systems in
sand mould design. The heuristic rules are extracted from expertise of method
engineers and compiled from well known published literature. The rules of thumb are
divided into two sections: gating system components and riser configurations. These
rules are organized and listed in a way to be easily used for producing sound and
economical castings.
Keywords: rigging system, sand casting, methoding design, heuristic rules.

1. Introduction The mould design requires prior experience

The casting process basically involves pouring
molten metal into a mould patterned after
the part to be manufactured; allowing it to
solidify and removing the casting from the
mould [1]. Casting processes are widely used
to produce metal parts in very economical
way and to obtain complicated shapes with
little or no machining [2]. The process of
casting includes of two main areas: design of
casted component and mould design.
[3]. The successful casting of a pre-designed
casting is vitally depending upon the skill and
experience of the foundry engineer, who
performs a task known as the methoding
design [4]. Methoding of intricate casting is
still considered as an art and not very well
documented in technical literature; while few
empirical equations are available [5].Heuristic
rules of methoding design are becoming
indispensable for producing sound casting.

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 HEURISTIC RULES OF METHODING DESIGN IN SAND CASTING: A REVIEW

2. Methoding design molten metal into all regions of the part to

This deals with decision related to tooling produce a sound casting. Ravi identified seven
including gating system, feeding system, elements associated with rigging system design as
orientation of the casting in the mould, and reported in [19].
location of parting line. The designs carried
The terms gating system referred to all passage or
out are based on past experience or using
channels through which the metal enters a mould
empirical equations that vary with
cavity [20]. Figure .2 shows the elements of gating
material, geometry and process
system: basin or cup. sprue or downsprue,
combination [6, 7,8]. Sound castings
runners, gates or in-gates, and extension or blind
heavily depend on the rigging system used.
ends. There are three types of gating system, top
Even after spending significant resource for gate bottom gate and side gates. Nearly 40% of
casting development, one of the following casting defects are attributed to faulty design of
situations may arise during regular gating and poor pouring practice [21- 23]
production: Under. Over design: Borderline
Riser (feeder) acts as a liquid reservoir provides
design: The three design conditions of
liquid to the casting during solidification, serves as
feeders design are illustrated in Figure .1
a heat reservoir, and creating a temperature
3. Heuristic rules gradient that induces directional solidification [24,
One type of shallow knowledge is heuristic 25]. Feeders appended to the casting at suitable
knowledge. George Polya defines heuristic locations are designed so that the shrinkage
as "the study of the methods and rules of defects are contained within the feeders.
discovery and invention" [9]. Instead of,
heuristic is the rule of thumb or empirical
knowledge that gained from experience.
Heuristics employed in two basic
situations: A problem that may not have an
Figure 1: (a) Over design, (b) borderline design (c)
exact solution, a problem that may have an
under design of feeder
exact solution, but not practical [10, 11].
Heuristic rules are applied in many fields
such as engineering medicine, and other
fields, by using many techniques such as
expert systems and fuzzy systems[12-18].
4. Rigging system design
In sand casting process the manufacture of Figure 2: (a) Cup and sprue (b) Runner ,in-gates
a part involves several steps, the first of and well shape
which is the design of the part itself, and
5. Heuristic rules of rigging system
specification of the material to be used.
The following common rules of thumb that aid the
This information is passed to methods
design of rigging system components are compiled
engineer, who will choose the casting
from expertise and well known published
process, and then design gating and
literature.
risering system, necessary to get the

34 Sudan Engineering Society Journal, March 2013, Volume 59; No.1

 Adil Mohamed Elbasheer Ahmed and Mohamed Ibrahim Shukri

5.1Gating system rules  Rectangular cross-section sprue better than

The rules of thumb of gating system elements circular ones with same cross-section area.
are organized and listed as follows:
 For non-ferrous, rectangular tapered is
1. Part orientation rules: recommended.
Orientation of the part refers to the cavity in
 Generally, rectangular sprue is used to avoid
the mould in the shape of the part that is
vortex. Round sprue with small height and
going to be casted. The rules are[26, 27]:
radius do not cause vortex.
 Orient the part so that the large part of the
 Choke area controls the sizing of gating
casting is relatively low.
component.
 Place open space down.
 Choke area can be calculated using the
 Orient the part so that the thin part of the following formula [30].
casting is low [28].
2. Parting line rules: √
 Place the parting line at the cross-section of
Where: WCis weight of the casting, WR is
the largest area of the casting
weight of the riser, t is pouring time, ρ is
 Place the parting line as low as possible density of metal, SL is sprue height, and C is
relative to the casting [29]. constant
 The internal angle of the mould walls at the  Height of the sprue (SL) is determined by the
parting line is less than 50. casting and the top riser height
 It divides the part surface into separate
regions, each produced by a different mould
For top gate HS = 0, for parting line gate HS =
segment.
half of casting height and for bottom gate HSis
3. Cups rules: the height of the casting. HF is feeder height
 Pouring cups selection, whether external or
 Sprue should be located as far from the gate
cut in the moulding sand.
as possible.
 Basin separates dross and slag from molten
 The sprue should be located centrally on the
metal.
runner with equal gates on each side.
 Pouring of molten metal in the cup to be
 The sprue should be tapered by
carried out at a point that is remote from the
approximately 5% minimum to avoid
sprue hole
aspiration and falling of metal.
 Skimmer, filter or delay screen can be used in
 Unclean metal must be washed out in a well
the cup to provide cleaner metal into the
below the sprue.
mould
 Well area for sprue box is 2-3 times the choke
4. Sprue rules:
area.
 The sprue should be sized to limit the flow
rate of molten metal.

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 HEURISTIC RULES OF METHODING DESIGN IN SAND CASTING: A REVIEW
 The well, is about 1.27 cm deeper than
runners.
5. Runner rules:
 Standard sizes and shapes are used for
runners.
 Rectangular cross-sections are preferred in
sand mould.
 Runners run along the part for long part.
 Sharp edge must be fillet.
 Blind ends are 2.5 to 30.4 cm long.
 Runners are sized using gating ratio, for
copper alloy range 1:2:2 - 1:4:4 and for
aluminum 1:2:1 - 1:4:2 gating ratio is choke:
runner: in-gate area [19].
 The best thing is to keep part of the runner
above and part of it below.
1.5.Gate rules:
Woldman asserts that a good gate design is
independent of the alloy cast [31].
 Gate into thick regions.
 Rectangular gate are mostly used.
 Orient the gates in the direction of the
natural flow path.
 Fillets between the gates and the casting are
desirable.
 A slight flare between the castings is
desirable.
 The number of gates is determined by casting
base feature.
 The maximum gate thickness should be 0.64 -
0.95 cm.
 The first gate located at a minimum 3.81 cm
distance away from sprue for small castings
and 30-38 cm for large castings.
36 Sudan Engineering Society Journal,
 Minimum gate length of 1.9 cm for small
casting and 10.16 cm for large casting [20].
5.2. Feeder rules
The first six rules are general rules, suggested
by Cambell [32].
 The feeder must solidify at the same time or
later than the casting.
 The feeder must contain sufficient liquid to
meet the volume -contraction requirements
of the casting.
 The junction between the feeder and the
casting should not create a hot spot.
 There must be path to allow feed to reach
feeding point.
 There must be sufficient pressure differential
requirement to cause the feed material to
flow in the right direction.
 There must be sufficient pressure at all points
in the casting to suppress the formation of
cavities.
 Feeders are attached to heavy sections of
castings and hot spot [33].
 Use the direction of the thermal gradient to
detect the hot spot [20]
 Use of side risers is common for thin wall
casting.
 Side feeders are usually located on top of the
gates.
 Top feeders are used for thick casting.
 Top feeders are located on bosses, away from
the gates.
 If the top feeder or side feeder is open to
atmospheric pressure the height to diameter
ratio is 1:1 to 2:1.
March 2013, Volume 59; No.1
 Adil Mohamed Elbasheer Ahmed and Mohamed Ibrahim Shukri

 Feeders considered as a liquid and heat
reservoir.
 Feeders are sized by the volume fed. In case
of multiple risering, each riser is considered
to be feeding a part of the casting.
 If it is necessary to use multiple feeders, they
should be located at 10.16-12.7 cm apart.
 If two nearby thick sections are fed, thin
section in between may contain porosities.
The problem may be avoided by risering one
thick section and chilling the other.
 The maximum feeding distance depends upon
whether the alloy is of the short freezing
range or long freezing-range.
 The cross section of the feeder is slightly
larger than the section it feeds.
 The design of feeder based on Chvorinov
rules to ensure adequate feeding and have
been widely investigated [34,35,36], which
states that the total freezing time (Tf) in the
casting of the volume (V) given by:
casting, SF is the shape factor, VR and VC is the
weight of riser, and casting respectively.
6. Conclusion
A collection of gating system and feeders
design common heuristic rules are presented
in a way that is to be easily used. From the
rules of gating system design, it can be
observed that the geometric features of the
casting such as casting boundaries, parting
line, orientation of casting and flow path are
essentially for the design of gating system.
Also, from the feeders rules of thumb it can be
observed that, beside the geometric feature of
casting, solidification rate, directional
solidification and location of gating system are
important factors of feeders design

( )

Where B is a constant for given metal and

mould condition, A is the surface area.
 Type of feeders and location of dimension as
shown in Figure 3.
 For the design of feeder, N.R.L method may
be used for thin section casting as shown in
Figure 3

Figure 3 Riser volume to casting volume,

plotted equation originally from [37] based on
data from [38]
Where: L is the length of the casting, W is the
width of the casting, T is the thickness of the

Sudan Engineering Society Journal, March 2013, Volume 59; No.1 37

 HEURISTIC RULES OF METHODING DESIGN IN SAND CASTING: A REVIEW
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