Highlights of Investment Casting Zone at The 24th China International Foundry Expo

Held from May 6 to 9, 2026 at the National Exhibition and Convention Center (Shanghai), China’s largest foundry exhibition gathered more than 130 enterprises covering the whole industrial chain of investment casting, including silica sol investment casting, 3D printed wax patterns, intelligent shell making and high-temperature alloy melting.

The whole industry is shifting to high-end downstream sectors such as aerospace, medical devices, ocean engineering and new energy equipment, while the production share of traditional castings for forklifts and general hardware keeps shrinking.

Monocrystalline superalloy turbine blades, thin-walled titanium alloy casings, duplex stainless steel chemical valves and integrated 3D printed wax pattern assemblies were on display in batches. Clustered manufacturers from Shandong, Hebei, Jiangsu and Zhejiang attended the show, with automatic intelligent pouring lines and full-automatic constant-temperature shell production lines becoming mainstream upgrades for equipment suppliers.

The forum delivered a key judgment: China’s investment casting industry has entered an era of micron-level precision competition. Wall thickness of aero-engine blades ranges only from 0.3 mm to 0.8 mm, with profile tolerance controlled within 50 microns. The traditional practice of reserving large machining allowances has been phased out, forcing manufacturers to widely adopt casting simulation software. More than 60% of leading enterprises use simulation tools, cutting trial production rounds from 3–5 to 1–2 and reducing rejection rates by 15%–20%.