Intelligent casting: Empowering the future foundry industry

Emerging technological advances are reshaping the casting sector in latest decades. Casting technology is evolving towards intelligent casting paradigm that involves automation, greenization and intelligentization, which attracts more and more attention from the academic and industry communities. In this paper, the main features of casting technology were briefly summarized and forecasted, and the recent developments of key technologies and the innovative efforts made in promoting intelligent casting process were discussed. Moreover, the technical visions of intelligent casting process were also put forward. The key technologies for intelligent casting process comprise 3D printing technologies, intelligent mold technologies and intelligent process control technologies. In future, the intelligent mold that derived from mold with sensors, control devices and actuators will probably incorporate the Internet of Things, online inspection, embedded simulation, decision-making and control system, and other technologies to form intelligent cyber-physical casting system, which may pave the way to realize intelligent casting. It is promising that the intelligent casting process will eventually achieve the goal of real-time process optimization and full-scale control, with the defects, microstructure, performance, and service life of the fabricated castings can be accurately predicted and tailored.