Abstract

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This study examined the effects of inner-gate (ingate) types on some mechanical properties of cast aluminium 6063 (Al-Mg-Si) alloy. In this work, rods of aluminium 6063 alloy were cast using top gating, bottom gating and parting line gating designs. Ingot of 6063 aluminium alloy was melted using crucible furnace and poured into already pre pared sand moulds. The casting from each gating system design was machined and tested for tensile, hardness and impact energy. The results from the tensile test revealed strength of 133.29, 122. 46 and 101.26 MPa for bottom gating, parting line gating and top gating respectively. Also, the results from the hardness test gave 61.25, 43.25 and 36.25 BHN for bottom gating, parting line gating and top gating respectively while impact test revealed that castings from top gating, parting line gating and bottom gating systems gave impact energy of 38.800, 36.108 and 34.476 Joules respectively. The study showed that the bottom gating system design produces casting of high tensile and hardness strength but least impact strength, followed by castings from parting line gating system while castings from top gating system produced castings of low tensile and hardness strength but high impact energy. Therefore, bottom gating design is recommended for use in applications that require high values of tensile strength and hardness while top gating design is recommended for use in applications that require high impact energy

Keywords: Crucible furnace, Gating system, Ingate, Tensile Strength, Impact energy