Abstract <p>Ensuring cast components meet material properties specified in design requirements is a critical post-casting consideration, and is often mandated by standards, customer specifications, and certification requirements. Accordingly, separately or attached cast test blocks are produced and evaluated for this purpose. However, as recognized by relevant standards, the properties measured from such test blocks frequently do not reliably represent those of the actual casting. To address this limitation, the present study proposes a numerical methodology for designing test blocks whose properties more closely match those of the target casting by aligning their solidification characteristics with those of a selected section of the part. Using this approach, a test block was designed for a heavy-section steel pillow block and subsequently validated experimentally. Both simulation results and laboratory testing demonstrate a substantial reduction in property disparity between the casting and those of the designed test block compared with conventional standard test blocks. For this specific case, simulations revealed a 791% difference in solidification time between the standard test block and casting. The designed test block reduced this to 5.6%. Experimental tests on the core regions showed differences in yield strength, tensile strength, elongation, and reduction of area between the designed test block and the casting were 2.8, 2.1, 5.9, and 12.1%, respectively. In contrast, differences for the standard test block compared with the part were 18.8, 12.1, 70.6, and 81.8%. This method is applicable to a wide range of casting materials and section sizes and is not limited to heavy-section steel castings.</p> Graphical Abstract <p></p>