The design of gating and risering, or rigging systems as they are sometimes referred to, has been a very important task in the manufacture of cast components. This paper presents a compilation of common rules of thumb used by foundry experts and guidelines suggested by researchers for better quality castings. The paper is divided into three sections: light alloy, steel and ductile iron castings. Each section presents heuristics commonly used for specific metals.

Casting processes are widely used to produce metal parts in a very economical way, and to obtain complicated shapes with little or no machining. The manufacture of a part involves several steps, the first of which is the design of the part itself, and the specification of the material to be used. This information is passed to the methods engineer, who will choose the casting process, and then design the rigging system necessary to get the molten metal into all regions of the part so as to produce a sound casting. Two major considerations in the casting design are the quality of the final product and the yield of the casting, both of which heavily depend upon the rigging system used.