“Just look at it and say, ‘Wow.’ Te fins, the holes, the need for dimensional stability—electronics housings will continue to demand more features as more electronics are jammed into smaller spaces.”—Casting Competition Judge
“Tey went as thin as could be
while still being producible,” Willson said. “It manufactures very well.” All the features the customer put into the part made for a casting with highly embellished walls, but the designers incorporated one last detail critical to its success: suffi- cient gating surfaces. “If you look at the part, it is busy
everywhere, so how do you get the metal into it?” Willson asked. “Tey accommodated the necessary gating into the design with a heavy flange.” With a tight design already in
place, it was up to O’Fallon Casting to produce repeatable parts that lived up to the designers’ vision. While the defense customer provided a part designed for optimal castability, it still presented a challenge due to the tight tolerances specified. “With thin walls like the ones used in this casting, some distor- tion occurs through heat treatment and freeing the casting from the ceramic shell,” Willson said. O’Fallon performed compression strengthen- ing on each aluminum part after heat treatment using a press and a fixture to bring the walls back into tolerance. “It came out well. Te whole project was highly satisfactory.” As much of a pleasure as it was
for O’Fallon to cast, the customer enjoyed the benefits of avoiding hours of fabrication and assembly, achieving higher precision than a fabrication, and minimizing second- ary machining. “I love taking this casting to dif-
ferent events to show that if someone can visualize it, we can generally cast it,” Willson said. “How do you design a casting? Easy. Visualize what you need and knit the material around what you want.”
June 2013 MODERN CASTING | 23
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