I get that the ingots need a certain draft angle in order to easily eject from the die, but why is the angle usually so extreme? The ingots are, from what i believe, just used for easy storage of metal, but why wouldn’t a lesser angle then be favorable, as the packing of the ingots would be more efficient?
In: 4
It’s the draft angle for the casting. You make the hole you’re later going to pour metal into by pressing an ingot-shaped piece of wood or steel into specially-formulated sand. When you pull it out, you don’t want the sides to stick to it or collapse into the ingot-well. If they do, you have to do the whole step over again.
Having a generous draft angle ensures that the casting process goes smoothly, and densely packing the ingots for storage is a non-issue. Even a loosely piled stack of aluminum (read: lightweight for metals) is so heavy that you have to think carefully about whether the floor can support its weight.
You can alternate their orientation in a pattern such as
\_/‾\_/‾\_/‾\_/‾\.
Edit: [found an image](https://cdn.thepipingmart.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/What-is-an-Aluminium-Ingot-and-What-are-Its-Uses.png).
Then the wasted space is very small regardless of incline. I am also not sure if space efficiency even matters that much for metals, they are pretty dense after all.