A Review of the Reliability Techniques Used in the Case of Casting Process Optimization

Foundry industries nowadays face problems, such as poor quality of the castings produced as well as wrong practices followed, which finally lead to decrease in productivity. Castings with minimum production cost and no defects have emerged as prime requirements in this vital manufacturing industry. This includes improving productivity and reducing cost by minimizing rejections. To achieve these improvements, various process parameters are necessary to be optimized. Simulation of casting process has become an irreplaceable tool in the production of cost-effective and high performance castings. Most of the casting simulation is based on a purely deterministic approach, in which shop floor iterative trial and error methods are replaced with iterations on computer. Optimization in casting process lacks consideration of reliability of casting production process and casting model. Reliability-based design optimization (RBDO) is an approach for the development of components, which aims to minimize the cost, while constraining the probability of failure. This study provides for a review of the casting process optimization through a reliability approach and concludes that the future studies could develop a comparative analysis of reliability with conventional techniques used in casting process optimization.