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Foundry industry - Current state and future development

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M. HOLTZER, R. DAŃKO, S. ŻYMANKOWSKA-KUMON ISSN 0543-5846
METABK 51(3) 337-340 (2012)
UDC – UDK 621.746:621.741:338.455:62.001.6=111

FOUNDRY INDUSTRY
– CURRENT STATE AND FUTURE DEVELOPMENT
Received – Prispjelo: 2011-09-04
Accepted – Prihvaćeno: 2012-02-20
Review Paper – Pregledni rad

The casting production is considered as one of the main factors influencing the development of world economy.
The state of art and foresight of world’s casting production is discussed in the paper on the basis of the latest statis-
tical data. The progress gained during the last few years in foundry engineering is shown as a way to further devel-
opment of foundry technology. The last decade brought significant changes in the world map of the greatest cast-
ing producers. Globalization and transformation of economic systems is reflected by variations of foundry produc-
tion in different countries, more over the globalization of economy is regarded not only as a chance but also as a
menace for the European foundries.
Key words: foundry, casting, production, development.
Ljevačka industrija – sadašnje stanje i budući razvitak. Ljevačka proizvodnja se smatra jednom od glavnih
utjecajnih faktora u svjetskom gospodarstvu. Stanje postignuća i predmnijevanje ljevačke proizvodnje na temelju
posljednjih statističkih podataka daje se u ovom članku. Polučeni napredak tijekom nekoliko posljednjih godina u
ljevačkoj tehnici je prikazan kao putokaz budućeg razvitka ljevačke tehnologije. Posljednja dekada donosi značajne
izmjene na svjetskoj karti najvećih proizvođača odljevaka. Globalizacija i tansformacija ekonomskog sustava
održavanja se raznolikošću u ljevačkoj proizvodnji različitih država, što više globalizacije gospodarstvo se motri ne
samo kao šansa nego i kao ugroz europskih ljevaonica.
Ključne riječi: ljevarstvo, odljevak, proizvodnja, razvitak

INTRODUCTION Out of 36 countries, main casting producers in the

The casting production is considered of the main
factors influencing the development of Word economy.
Actual capacity of the world’s casting production, which
is higher than 91 mln metric tons per year (2010), is
strongly diversified. The last decade brought significant
changes in the Word map of the greatest casting produc-
ers. Globalization and transformation of economic sys-
tems is reflected by variations of foundry production in
different countries, moreover the globalization of econ-
omy is regarded not only as a chance but also as a men-
ace for the European foundries [1].
ESTIMATION OF THE CURRENT SITUATION
IN THE WORLD’S CASTING PRODUCTION
A casting production in the last years has had an in-
creasing tendency. It is shown by the fact, that the world
casting production increased by 13,7 % from 2009 to
2010. However, the total casting production being 91,4
million tons in 2010, was still lower than the production in
2008 being 93,5 million tons and than the peak year 2007
when the casting production equaled 94,9 million tons.
M. Holtzer, R. Dańko, S. Żymankowska-Kumon, AGH University of Sci-
ence and Technology, Faculty of Foundry Engineering, Kraków, Poland
world, in 4 countries only the casting production in 2010
was lower than in 2009 (Canada, Norway, Serbia and
Slovenia). Whereas Taiwan and Brazil had the highest
production increase in this period, being 42 % and 41 %,
respectively.
10 countries, the largest casting producers in the
world produced in 2010 approximately 88 % of casting,
having the same participation in the global production
as in 2009. The largest casting producers in the year
2010 were: China, India, USA, Germany, Russia, Bra-
zil, South Korea, Italy and France (Figure 1, Table 1).
Casting production in the EU countries in 2010 is
shown in Figure 2.
The leader in the casting production from many
years is China, which produced 43 % of castings in
2010. The second place, however with the production
4-times smaller than China, belongs to India, which
share is 10 %, due to 22 % increase in relation to 2009.
A significant production increase (11 % as compared
with 2009) obtained also the United States of America.
The EU countries share in the casting production equaled
approximately 15 % (Figure 3) [2-4].
The highest fraction constitute gray iron castings,
which tonnage in 2010 was 44,1 million tons, it means
above 48 %. Castings of the spheroidal cast iron consti-
tuted nearly 25 % and increased by 1% in relation to

METALURGIJA 51 (2012) 3, 337-340 337

 M. HOLTZER et al.: FOUNDRY INDUSTRY – CURRENT STATE AND FUTURE DEVELOPMENT

40 20
Gray Iron
Castings / million tons

Castings / million tons

16 Ductile Iron
30
Steel
12
Nonferrous
20
8

10 4

0
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*2009
Figure 4 Fraction of individual casting materials in the world
Figure 1 Castings production in the leading world countries production in the year 2010 [2]
in 2010 [2]
Table 1 Casting production in countries being the largest
5
producers, showing fractions of various materials
Castings / million tons

used [2]
4
Country Gray Ductile Steel Nonferrous ∑
3 Iron Iron
Castings / thousand tons
2
China 19 600 9 900 5 300 4 800 39 600
1
India 6 180 1 050 1 070 750 9 050
0 U.S. 2 630 2 750 980 1 870 8 230
H any

om
Fr rk
er e
en c

Po and

om l
Sl nia
R tria

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Po y
ry

in n
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Germany 2 180 1 490 192 930 4 792

It

gd
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ch us

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ep
ze A

Japan 2 160 1 350 207 1 040 4 757

te
ni

Russia 1 740 1 260 700 500 4 200

C

Brazil 1 940 786 243 273 3 242

Figure 2 Casting production in the EU countries in 2010 [2, 3] Korea 1 040 653 157 382 2 232
Italy 630 405 64 870 1 969
Brazil 2,6 % France 623 916 85 333 1 957
Japan 5 %
UE 15 % presented in Figure 5, while for the selected largest cast-
Russia 5 % ing producers – in Figure 6 a, b. It is worth to notice that
the crisis of the year 2009 influenced the China casting
U.S. 9 % production very favourably, and in a certain degree also
India, while the remaining countries reported the pro-
duction decrease.
The total number of foundry plants in the world
India 10 % China 43 %
amounts to more than 48 000, out of which nearly 55 %
are located in China. The second place in respect of the
foundry plants number belongs to India, where there is
more than 9 % foundry plants. The most of them are
Figure 3 Leading countries share in the world castings
production [2-4] 50
45
Gray Iron
Castings / million tons

40
2009. Whereas the share of steel casts equaled approxi-
35
mately 11 % and was slowly decreasing during the year 30
2010, in a similar fashion as the non-ferrous metals 25
castings, which equaled approximately 16 % in 2010 20
Ductile Iron Nonferrous
(Figure 4). Among the non-ferrous metals castings the 15
10
dominating position was taken by the aluminium alloy Steel
5 Malleable Iron
castings (approximately 11 % of the total world casting 0
production). The share of magnesium, zinc, copper and 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
other non-ferrous metals was very small.
Casting production value of 10 largest producers – Figure 5 Casting production in the years 2001 – 2010,
showing fractions of various kinds of material used
with indicating the kind of material – in the year 2010 [5]. Notice: It is expected that in 2011 production of
are shown in Table 1. ferrous alloy castings was 78 million tons, aluminium
Tendencies in the global production of castings with alloy castings approxinately 13 million tons, and
indicating the kind of material (in years 2001-2010) are copper alloy castings 1,6 million tons [6].

338 METALURGIJA 51 (2012) 3, 337-340

 M. HOLTZER et al.: FOUNDRY INDUSTRY – CURRENT STATE AND FUTURE DEVELOPMENT

producing iron castings (50 %). An average annual pro-

duction of one foundry plant equals in China 1 500 tons,
in India app. 2 000 tons, while in Japan nearly 3 000
tons, in the USA – 4 000 tons, and in Germany – the
clear leader in productivity – above 7 800 tons. This
indicates that the foundry industry is highly fragmented
in the first two countries, which at the same time are the
largest casting producers [7].
The foundry industry is predominantly still an SME
industry, with 80 % of companies employing less than
250 people. The foundry production which is now un-
dertaken results from fewer units and less employees.
This can be explained by progressive up scaling and au- Figure 8 Non ferrous foundry productivity data for various
tomation in the foundry units. The relationship between European countries. Notice: the size of the circle
unit size, production and employments is well illustrat- represents the total production in the specified
ed in Figure 7 (ferrous foundry) and Figure 8 (nonfer- country [2-4]
rous foundry). Engineering
industry
Automotive 30 %
40
industry
35 (motorization) Construction
Castings / million tons

China 50 % and
30
Others Infrastructure
25 (Electronics, Systems
Medicine, 10 %
20
Avation)
15 10 %
U.S.
10 Figure 9 Main markets server by the foundry industry
Russia
5
India Japan
0
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
The comparison of the production effectiveness in
a)
the European countries in years 2009 and 2010 indi-
6 cates an increase. Within the ferrous alloy castings the
5
Germany production effectiveness is the highest in Germany,
Castings / million tons

France and Spain. Whereas within the domain of the

4 non-ferrous metals castings the sequence is as follows:
France Brazil Austria, Germany, Spain.
3 c Italy
The main markets server by the foundry industry are
2
Korea
the automotive, general engineering and construction
1 sectors (Figure 9).
0
b) 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 IS THE FOUNDRY INDUSTRY AS THE
PRODUCTION TECHNIQUE HAVING FUTURE?
Figure 6 Total casting production in 10 countries, being the
leaders, in the period: 2001 – 2010 [5] Analysis of the world economy and its development
trends indicates for the constantly growing share of
foundry industry as the production and treatment tech-
nology of metal products. The biggest growth of casting
production takes place in the countries being the eco-
nomic leaders, in which it constitutes the significant
part of the global income (Figure 10).
Continuous development of technologies and means
of production did not cause any elimination of casting
as a production techniques, but – on the contrary – in-
creased its importance and resulted in treating the foun-
dry industry as a significant and constant element of
economic and civilization development of nations. Di-
rect shaping of metal products of practically every de-
Figure 7 Ferrous foundry productivity data for various
European countries. Notice: the size of the circle gree of complication, realized by the limited number of
represents the total production in the specified technological procedures, eliminating several additional
country [2-4] operations – necessary when other production tech-

METALURGIJA 51 (2012) 3, 337-340 339

 M. HOLTZER et al.: FOUNDRY INDUSTRY – CURRENT STATE AND FUTURE DEVELOPMENT

Nominal GDP / thousand millions $

40 16000
35 Castings 2009 14000
Castings / million tons

Castings 2010
30 12000
nominal GDP 2009
25 nominal GDP 2010 10000
20 8000
15 6000
10 4000
5 2000
0 0
.

n
na

y
a

si a

(S l

ce
)
.S

zi

th
an
di

al
pa

an
or Bra
U
hi

us

ou

It
In

Ja
C

Fr
R
er
G

ea
Figure 12 Examples of castings made with the application of
K

the most modern casting technologies

Figure 10 Gross domestic product (GDP) and the castings
production in 2009 and 2010 in countries being the metal components as well as the off-shore manufacturing
leaders in the casting production of durable goods that require castings continue to pro-
foundly reshape European metal casting industry. The ef-
fects of the recession were magnified by the influx of
low-priced castings from off-shore sources including
Brazil, India and particularly China. Nowadays it is be-
coming clear that economic trends and technological ad-
vances are creating an inflection point in the growth rate
for cast metals components. The growth in the world
economy, particularly in such countries like: China, Rus-
sia, India and Brazil will fuel demand for casting related
to transportation and an industrialized infrastructure.
Metalcasters need to invest in technology and in
people. A meaningful improvements in casting design,
modeling, prototyping and production will be of the
highest importance if foundries want to achieve increas-
ing the capabilities and lower costs.
Figure 11 Comparison of the production costs of the product Finally foundries need to invest in people. The
obtained by means of the casting technology and knowledge and skills needed to keep pace are changing
mechanical treatment technology [8] even faster than the technology. Over the next 50 years,
new skills will need to be developed every three to five
niques are employed – constitutes still the basic and ad-
years. Ongoing training and education will be a must
vantage of this method, even when castings are in the
for successful foundries.
range of the so-called “high-tech” (Figures 11, 12).
The study was performed within the Project No. 07-
0016-10/2010 from NCBiR and the Research Project Na-
CHANCE AND DIRECTIONS OF THE FOUNDRY tional Science Centre No. N N507320440 (2011-2012).
INDUSTRY FURTHER DEVELOPMENT
The most important research directions leading to REFERENCES
further development of the foundry industry: 1. J. Dańko, M. Holtzer, Metalurgija 45 (2006) 4, 333-340.
• development of new technologies and casting alloys, 2. 45th Census of World Casting Production. Modern Casting
12 (2011), 16-19.
• melting and liquid metal preparation, 3. CAEF Committee of Associations of European Foundries
• manufacturing of moulds and cores, (Information materials).
• preparation of casting materials and composites, 4. J.J. Sobczak, E. Balcer, A. Kryczek, Przegląd Odlewnictwa
• pouring, solidifying and cooling of casting, 1-2 (2012), 10-14.
• technological waste management, 5. 36th-45th Census of World Casting Production. Modern
• new production systems and quality control, Casting 12 (2001-2011).
6. H.J. Büchner, World Casting Production – Forecast 2011.
• sustainable development of foundry industry, Düsseldorf April, 7, 2011.
• energy and material efficient technologies. 7. A. Pribulova, L. Mihok, A. Lastivka, Archives of Foundry
Engineering 20 (2006), 93-100.
CONCLUSIONS 8. Ductile Iron Data for Design Engineers Publisher by Rio
Tinte and Titanium, a Member of Ductile Iron Marketing
European metalcasting industry, just as most Europe- Group. Revised and Reprinted 1998.
an and USA manufacturing, suffered greatly from the
early in this decade. Moreover, substantial dynamics in Note: The responsible translator for English language:
the global economy, especially off-shore sourcing of cast “ANGOS” Translation Office, Kraków, Poland

340 METALURGIJA 51 (2012) 3, 337-340

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