**1. Introduction**

I have written about casting processes extensively, some would say, overextensively, but useful new concepts enshrining the new insights into this important subject are being only slowly realized and understood. Their awful importance to the reliability of engineering is yet to be fully adopted. It is useful therefore to offer a short summary in this appropriate volume. A personal reading list is appended.

Space unfortunately forbids any lengthy discussion of the influence of the melting processes on the quality of the resulting castings. However, of course, the quality of the metal prior to casting is of critical importance; a liquid metal, especially if a secondary metal (such as recycled metal, as is common in the aluminum industry) can be literally crammed with defects, so that despite the excellence of the casting process and the heat treatment process, the resulting casting predictably fails all mechanical property requirements and is scrapped. We shall have time to give only a brief mention of this important problem. Our subject is the casting process.
