Gating and risering in vertical green sand moulds

The high number of successful green sand foundries working with vertical moulding equipment is the best proof of the advantages of this technology. It provides high productivity and accurate positioning of cores. It offers the freedom to design and produce with optimal functioning gating systems to secure good casting quality.

The aim of the paper is to look into new ways of improving this successful casting technology. First a short introduction to the advantages of vertical moulding will be presented.

The next subject is the advantages of utilising casting process simulation to optimise casting layout, gating and risering. Focus is on castings produced in the conventional way as well as on castings that are produced using the newly developed active feeding and active bottom filling technique.

The last subject is to investigate if this new active feeding technique could be used for iron castings too. Experimental casting trials, as well as numerical simulation results, indicate that it is also functioning for iron castings; so the limiting factor will be the availability of robust equipment, which can keep up with the very fast vertical moulding machines.