Facing the market economy and global challenge, the development of manufacturing industry, especially casting industry is
critical to the national economy. However, there is quite a large technical gap between the casting industries at home and abroad. The views on the future trend of innovative casting technologies are consistent at home and abroad. They are: 1) key technology for manufacturing super large and heavy castings for the national engineering projects, 2)
net shape casting technologies, and 3) application of
modeling and simulation technology to substitute the traditional trial and error method.To reform the traditional casting industry by using computer technology is one of the hottest research frontiers attracted by many researchers and engineers. Computer simulation of solidification process of shaped casting can assure the quality of casting, optimize the casting technology, shorten the lead time and,therefore, decrease the developing and manufacturing cost. Recently, numerical simulation of mold-filling and solidification processes of casting and the prediction of shrinkage defects,etc., have been put into application in many casting plants at home and abroad, and great progress in stress analysis and microstructure simulation has been achieved. <