Sow mold and sow ingot

A mold for casting a molten metal into a metal ingot, comprising a mold box having a bottom wall and side walls projecting upward from the bottom wall to define a mold cavity therewith for receiving said molten metal, said bottom wall including a first raised zone projecting into the cavity and extending longitudinally along the length direction of the bottom wall and adapted to form longitudinal depression of corresponding cross section into a bottom surface of the ingot formed therein, and at least two second raised zones projecting into the cavity and extending transversely along the width direction of the bottom wall and adapted to form a transvserse depression of corresponding cross section in a bottom surface of the ingot, wherein said second raised zones define raised depressions in the ingot bottom communnicating with opposing longitudinal sides of the ingot and which raised depressions are spaced from each other to receive a pair of fork lift tines entering said depressions from a direction generally perpendicular to one of the opposing longitudinal ingot sides for ease of handling and wherein longitudinally extending edges of the mold bottom wall extending contiguous with the opposing mold side walls respectively define a pair of third raised zones establishing raised protuberances in the mold bottom wall spaced from each other on opposite sides of the central longitudinal axis to define a pair of longitudinally extending raised side ledges in the ingot bottom adapted to receive a pair of fork lift tines entering beneath the ledges from a direction generally perpendicular to one of the ingot transvserse sides.

In a sow ingot cast from a molten metal, the improvement comprising a bottom surface of the ingot including a longitudinally extending depression and a pair of transversely extending depressions configured to define an ingot bottom surface to volume ratio enabling a solidification front in the molten metal to occur that generally moves from the bottom surface to a top surface of the ingot to substantially entirely prevent formation of voids in the ingot and depression of the top surface, wherein said longitudinally extending depression extends along the central longitudinal axis of the ingot, wherein said pair of transversely extending depressions extend generally perpendicular to the central depression and on opposite sides of a central transverse axis of the ingot, wherein said pair of transversely extending depressions communicate with longitudinally extending sides of the ingot and are spaced from each other to receive a pair of fork lift tines entering the depressions from a direction perpendicular to one of the longitudinally extending sides for each of handling and wherein longitudinally extending bottom surface edges of the ingot extending contiguous with the longitudinally extending sides of the ingot define a pair of longitudinally extending raised depressions in the ingot bottom surface spaced from each other on opposite sides of the central longitudinal axis to establish a pair of raised side ledges in the ingot communicating with the transverses sides of the ingot and adapted to receive a pair of fork lift tines entering the raised depressions from a direction perpendicular to one of the transvserse ingot sides.