Brad Barringer​

The project was to design, manufacture, and test a tabletop die cast system to be used as lab equipment in MET 257 – Casting Processes. The motivation for this project was the MET 257 – Casting Processes instructor’s desire to physically demonstrate the die casting process, but they were unable to find a system that would meet all of their requirements. They required a system design that was small, portable, would fit in the foundries limited space, had an open concept to allow students to see what was occurring during the pour, and compatibility with the foundries current equipment. The project was broken into three sections. The first section was the design and analysis of the system. This process included modeling the system, calculating the crucial elements of the design, and a full proposal of the system design that would be built and tested. The second section, the manufacturing process, involved manually and CNC milling steel stock into the desired parts, as well as producing a few simple wood parts and modifying a couple purchased parts. The third section, testing, evaluated the systems functionality as well as the system’s viability as an educational tool. The success criterion for the system was the viability of the system as a piece of educational equipment that could be operated by the MET 257 – Casting Processes instructor.