How to calculate rough weight of iron and steel castings

Iron foundries need to calculate the estimated rough casting weights during quotation process. Estimated rough weight is very important for the prices. Lower and higher weight will directly affect the prices of iron and steel castings.

As we have said before, the iron and steel foundries calculate their production costs directly based on the rough weights of castings, not based on the machined weights. However, as for a new product, normally, casting buyers will not know their rough weights, sometimes, they even do not know the real finished weights. Therefore, it is necessary for the casting suppliers to calculate or estimate the rough weights by themselves.

Calculating rough weights is a complex and difficult works. Only experienced engineers could make an accurate result. Firstly, they need to consider the suitable machining allowance to all machined positions, then calculate the volume of rough castings, finally, multiply the volume by the density of cast iron or cast steel. The followings are the common density of cast iron, cast steel and cast aluminum.

Grey cast iron: 7.2-7.4 g/cm3
Ductile cast iron: 7.3 g/cm3
Cast steel: 7.8 g/cm3
Stainless steel: 7.7-7.9 g/cm3
Cast aluminum: 2.6 g/cm3

As for the machining allowance, as for the iron castings produced by automatic molding line, molding machine, lost wax investment casting or by die casting process, 2 to 3mm will be suitable. Too small will affect the machining, too large will increase the costs for rough castings. As for the manual green sand casting and resin sand castings, 3 to 6mm will be needed since these two processes will cause more surface defects and larger dimensional tolerance. As for the large castings, such as larger than 500mm, or over 200kg, you should consider enough machining allowance such as 6 to 10mm, to remove the surface defects and dimensional deformation factors.

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