Today sand casting is used enormously due to its inherent advantage of no size and shape limitation and low cost. However the major issue of defect and yield need to be addressed further. The appropriate control over process parameters and design of gating system can resolve the stated problem to greater extent. The defects like distortion, porosity and cold shut /mis-run are very much dependent on melt temperature, solidification rate and design of gating system. In present case attempts have been made to control the process by studying the effect of pouring temperature and gating system design. A commercial software AutoCAST-X1 is used for the purpose. It shows that to obtain uniform cooling and directional solidification towards feeder, use sprue position at center and side feeder should be used as in present case of cylindrical shaped hollow stepped casting of LM4 alloy. As gating ratio and melt pouring temperature is increased, shrinkage porosity and cold-shut defects are minimized to greater extent. The best gating ratio designed is 0 1:3:3 and pouring temperature of 682 C for LM4 alloy.

Keywords: Gating ratio, Melt pouring temperature, Feeder design, Direction solidification, Liquid fraction.