Jensen D H

Abstract: Castability is a term used to capture the comparative ease with which a part design may be produced as a casting. This paper details a means to computationally evaluate the castability of a part based on its’ orientation to the molding media (draw direction vector). It is assumed that a tessellated solid model of the part (such as a stereolithography model or STL format) is available, and that the facets and edges of model have been mapped to the corresponding molding surfaces (cf. Jensen \& Fischer, 1998). In an automated molding design system, this method will provide an objective function that may be utilized to select the optimum draw direction for a particular part. In a similar fashion, assuming that the part/mold orientations have already been optimized, the method can also be used to evaluate the castability of competing part designs.

Keywords: Automated method, CAD, Evaluation, Mold castability, Oriented, Solid models