ABB Foundry Robots and the Gigacasting Boom

Gigacasting is spreading from Dongfeng to Toyota. See how ABB Foundry Plus 2 robots tend die casting machines and grind parts, and where foundry work goes next.

INDUSTRIAL ROBOTICS

Chat With Robot

9/24/20261 min read

A wartime photo from the foundry at the U.S. Naval Gun Factory in Washington shows a ladle of molten metal pouring and throwing sparks across the floor. For most of its history, casting metal was hot, loud and dangerous work that people did by hand.

Glowing ladle pouring molten metal in a dark foundry with sparks flying
Glowing ladle pouring molten metal in a dark foundry with sparks flying

Molten metal pouring in the foundry of the U.S. Naval Gun Factory, Washington, during World War II. Photo: U.S. Navy / Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Die casting changed the method. A machine forces molten aluminum or magnesium into a steel mold under high pressure and opens again a few seconds later. Someone still had to reach into that hot machine, pull the part out, cool it, trim it and grind off the leftover metal.

Blue die casting machine in a workshop with a worker standing beside it
Blue die casting machine in a workshop with a worker standing beside it

A magnesium die casting machine with its operator. Photo: Swoolverton / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)

Carmakers now cast whole sections of a car body in one piece on giga presses of 9,000 tonnes and up. For the week of September 14 to 20, The Gigacasting Newsletter reported that Dongfeng ran its first sample of a gigacast rear floor and that Toyota plans a next-generation Lexus EV with gigacast parts in Shanghai.

Huge red and white die casting press towering over two men standing in front of it
Huge red and white die casting press towering over two men standing in front of it

A 9,000-tonne IDRA Giga Press at the maker's open house in Italy. Photo: Paul Sladen / Wikimedia Commons (CC0)

Robots already do most of the reaching. ABB's Foundry Plus 2 protection seals a robot to IP67 against dust and liquid and lets it survive high-pressure steam washing. The compact IRB 1200 Foundry Plus 2 was built to tend small die casting machines that make parts like smartphone cases, and ABB's RobotWare die casting software handles part extraction.

White ABB IRB 1300 robot labelled Foundry Plus 2 working in an enclosed cell
White ABB IRB 1300 robot labelled Foundry Plus 2 working in an enclosed cell

An ABB IRB 1300 with Foundry Plus 2 protection, sealed to IP67. Photo: ABB

Finishing is the dusty step that comes next. At German steel service center Ancofer, an ABB IRB 6700 in Teqram's EasyGrinder cell picks flame-cut steel parts from a pallet, scans each one in 3D, grinds off burrs and stacks it again, so short batches need no new programming. Castings need that same cleanup.

White ABB industrial robot grinding a round steel part with sparks flying
White ABB industrial robot grinding a round steel part with sparks flying

An ABB IRB 6700 grinding a steel part in Teqram's EasyGrinder cell at Ancofer. Photo: ABB

Bigger castings mean fewer parts to weld, so a gigacast car should be quicker to build. I expect more foundry cells where one robot unloads the press and another grinds and checks the part, leaving the people who remain to work behind glass. Your next phone case or car floor may never touch a human hand.

Overhead view of an ABB robot grinding a steel disc beside pallets of parts
Overhead view of an ABB robot grinding a steel disc beside pallets of parts

The EasyGrinder robot picks parts from pallets, grinds them and stacks them again. Photo: ABB

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