Casting and Molding

Casting and Molding

The word Casting will be widely used when any solid material is melted and processed in his liquid form while word molding will be used when material is softened into a plastic state. In the other hand Foundry is more narrowly used for metal casting.

Casting and Molding

Solidification for pure materials will show a flat zone at the fusion temperature, the razon for this apparently stoking in the cooling process is due to the fact that material is transforming from liquid to a solid state, when this change happens it is say that a thermal arrest is taking place.

Casting and Molding

Things change a little bit if we have a mix or an alloy. The process of cooling down wont have a flat zone, instead it has a freezing range wich is the gap between liquidus and solidus lines at the phase diagram. In this example we see a phase diagram for Cooper and Niquel

Casting- expendable moldpoured by gravity

Parting line
Pouring cup Ladle Sprue Runner

Cavity Flask

Gravity casting
Shrinkage is one of the most important problems in the casting process. There are 3 types of shrinkage: shrinkage of the liquid, solidification shrinkage and patternmaker's shrinkage or solid state shrinkage. First one is rarely a problem because more material is flowing into the mold behind it. Solidification shrinkage occurs during solidification so the metal density dramatically increases. Solid shrinkage refers to the shrinkage that occurs when the material is already in solid state and cooled from the solidification temperature to room temperature, this will cause most of the problems during the casting process

Metal
Aluminium

Brass
Magnesium

Cast iron
Steel

Casting poured by gravity

Design of risers and sprues for casting processes are based on relationships and equations like: Bernoullis equation

Continuity equation

Chorinovs equation

Caines method
A proper raiser will prevent your final piece of having shrikage: Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 4 Step 5 Determine volume of your casting Determine superficial area of your piece Choose the geometry of your raiser Determine volume and superficial area for your raiser Determine common superficial areas between pattern and raiser Substract common areas from raisers and patterns Determine ratio between Area/ Volume for the raiser Determine ratio between Area/Volume for the pattern Determine freezing ratio between pattern over raiser Determine volume ratio between raiser over pattern

Step 6 areas Step 7 Step 8 Step 9 Step 10

Results of step 9 and 10 must be checked in the diagram and must be within the solid region (horizontal axis represents values for freezing ratio and vertical axis gives volume ratios).

Raisers
Within the casting procesess there are two main kinds of raisers. A blind one will be better in therms of heat transfer, this means a blind riser will freeze at a lower freezing rate so it remains liquid and will help to compensate shrinkage.

Hints.
Considerations when making pattern for casting processes: Shrinkage (materials shrinkage). a

Surface that will need an extra machining require and oversized dimension typically of 1.5 mm 3mm. Avoid 90 degrees corners. Apply a draft angle of 2 - 3 to all walls perpendicular to the parting line to facilitate removing the part from the mold.