Function
Sprues can serve as filters, heat sinks, and as feeders. Bronze in particular has a high shrinkage rate as it is cooling; a sprue can continue to provide molten metal to the casting, provided it is large enough to retain its heat and stay liquid, as metal in the main casting cools and shrinks. The design of the sprue and runner system can be also utilized to trap unwanted dross and sand from continuing into the main cavity; this may include adding porous material to the runners, or designing the sprue to eject the dross to the side of the sprue using cyclonic separation.
Read more about this topic: Sprue (manufacturing), Casting
Famous quotes containing the word function:
“... the function of art is to do more than tell it like it is—it’s to imagine what is possible.”
—bell hooks (b. c. 1955)
“Think of the tools in a tool-box: there is a hammer, pliers, a saw, a screwdriver, a rule, a glue-pot, nails and screws.—The function of words are as diverse as the functions of these objects.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)
“Uses are always much broader than functions, and usually far less contentious. The word function carries overtones of purpose and propriety, of concern with why something was developed rather than with how it has actually been found useful. The function of automobiles is to transport people and objects, but they are used for a variety of other purposes—as homes, offices, bedrooms, henhouses, jetties, breakwaters, even offensive weapons.”
—Frank Smith (b. 1928)