Numerical optimization of gating system parameters for a magnesium alloy casting with multiple performance characteristics

An optimization technique for design of gating system parameters of a cylindrical magnesium casting based on the Taguchi method with multiple performance characteristics was proposed in this paper. The various gating systems for a casting model of magnesium alloy were designed. Mold filling and solidification processes of the magnesium casting were simulated with the MAGMASOFT®. The simulation results indicated that gating system parameters significantly affect the quality of the magnesium casting. In an effort to obtain the optimal process parameters of gating system, an orthogonal array, the signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio, and analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used to analyze the effect of various gating designs on cavity filling and casting quality using a weighting method. Four gating system parameters, namely ingate height, ingate width, runner height, runner width, were optimized with consideration of multiple performance characteristics including filling velocity, shrinkage porosity and product yield. Different magnesium alloys have been employed to illustrate the effectiveness of this approach.