Application of Taguchi's approach for obtaining mechanical properties and microstructures of evaporative pattern castings.

Taguchi's approach to design of experiment was applied to determine the effect of some process parameters on the mechanical properties and microstructures of castings obtained by evaporative pattern casting process. Four process parameters with three levels were selected and used with Taguchi's method to give nine experimental runs. Casting design system was employed to determine the gating parameters for each of the test castings in the study. The pattern material was polystyrene of density 2 g/cm. The mechanical property tested where the ultimate tensile strength (UTS), percentage elongation and hardness value. It was observed that castings produced at pouring temperature of 650 °C had fine grains and the highest values of UTS and hardness values. There was a downward trend of these values as the pouring temperature increased from 650 to 700 °C and then to 750 °C. It was established that producing the Al alloy castings at pouring temperature close to 650 °C results in good mechanical properties and microstructures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]