Foundry tooling - Design

The aim of this dossier and its companion [M 3 586] , which deals with the manufacturing side of this type of tooling, is to provide the reader with an overview of foundry tooling, from its constitution and design to its final use: manufacturing methods, materials and future prospects.

Here, we'll start by taking a very general look at their constitution and design. It should be stressed that, in principle, this role does not fall to the "foundryman", but to the "toolmaker", whose main skills, in addition to those specific to the tools he designs and manufactures, are Computer-Aided Design and Manufacturing (CAD/CAM) and the subsequent stages involved in their manufacture (see [M 3 586] ).

Important: as the various foundry techniques used are very precisely described in other dossiers in Techniques de l'Ingénieur, we encourage the reader to refer to the following references: [M 3 500][M 3 510] , [M 3 512] and [M 3 540] .