Analysis and Optimization of Gating System for Commutator End Bracket

Abstract

A well-designed runner and gating system is very important to produce good quality die castings by providing a homogenous mould filling pattern. Flow analysis of the component is done in order to visibly analyse the cavity filling process. In this study, a Commutator End (CE) bracket, a cold chamber die casted product was chosen. Initially when the component was casted numerous defects such as Cold shuts, Misrun, Shrinkage porosity and Gas porosity were found. This in turn led to rejection of number of components. In order to improve the quality of the castings produced, the gating system was changed from the existing flat gate to modified spoon fed gate. The component was designed using Pro- Engineer and flow analysis was carried out using Rotork Flow 3D Software. The process parameters like metal temperature, fill velocity and filling time are considered for optimizing the process. Quality assessment for the die casting parts was made by microstructure analysis.