Addressing Tooling and Casting Requirements at the Design Stage:

Several of the tooling and casting requirements of a part can be addressed at the design stage. If these requirements are not addressed at the design stage, lot of time is spent in design iteration when the design reaches the die caster. These design issues lead to increase in time and cost of production leading to delay in time to market and reduced profits for the organization. The features present in the design determine the total cost and the complexity of the tool. Designers should be aware of the cost of features added to the part and should try to reduce cost wherever possible. Some of the features that affect cost, tool life and castability are wall thickness, rib parameters, dimensions of bosses, holes, sharp corners, draft angle, fillet radii, engraving, finishing, tolerances, material, quantity of produced parts, to name a few.

This paper discusses various issues related to casting and tooling that can be addressed at the design stage to save valuable time and cost.