subject: The Role Of Casting Foundries [print this page] A foundry is where the process of casting takes place and the role of the foundry industry in India is extremely important because it facilitates the growth of other engineering sectors and the overall Indian economy. The casting foundries in India benefit a number of industries including railways, automobiles, tractor industry, engineering industries, earth moving machinery, agro machinery, machine tools, sanitary casting etc.
It is believed that about 32% of the casting output from the foundry industry goes to auto industries and the remaining is used by the engineering sector. This aspect highlights the significance of the foundry industry and how crucial it is that it should also correspond with a consistent growth rate to sustain the ongoing growth in automobile and other engineering sectors.
The first step towards manufacturing a product is the casting and this technique takes place in a foundry where the melted liquids are poured into moulds. The foundry industry in India has flourished quite well, however, it has a long way to go before it can meet the international standards. It is right now growing considering the demand for foundries in India has increased considerably with the demands of the automobile and other industries.
Most of the small and medium sized enterprises are greatly involved in the casting industry and it is them that have casting foundries. The casting foundries can be categorized industrial foundry, commercial foundry and hobby foundry. This categorization takes place based on the type of the consumers as well as the kind of casting processes that will take place. Undoubtedly for large requirements an industrial foundry will be more apt than a commercial foundry.
Even in commercial castings the production volume is quite high because the castings are used in a variety of applications. In this type of casting foundries, the components or parts that are utilized for casting is recycled and used later on for the production of other castings. Chemical casting foundries serve a number of industries including railroad equipment, auto equipment, construction, fabricated metal products, chemicals, electronic equipment, food services etc.
In case of both industrial and commercial castings, the dependency is mainly on metal castings because when compared to other methods it is definitely more advantageous. Commercial casting foundries prepare the caster based on the nature and size of the castings and some of the most commonly types of casters used today include floor molding, pit molding, bench molding, stack molding and machine molding.
Some of the most popular casting techniques that are used at the foundries include die casting, investment casting, sand casting, shell casting and lost foam casting. In India most of the foundries carry out these various casting methods. Any particular method is selected based on the requirement, criteria and the cost factor because end of the day the client should be satisfied with the process used for casting. Undoubtedly, different casting methods yield results differently because some are precision based than others while some processes are specifically designed to handle large amount of castings. Based on different requirements, the casting foundries churn out the castings as the per the clients specifications.
