Centrifugal casting is a casting technique that is typically used to cast thin-walled cylinders. It is noted for the high quality of the results attainable, particularly for precise control of their metallurgy and crystal structure. Unlike most other casting techniques, centrifugal casting is chiefly used to manufacture stock materials in standard sizes for further machining, rather than shaped parts tailored to a particular end-use.

Centrifugal casting was the invention of Alfred Krupp, who used it to manufacture cast steel tyres for railway wheels in 1852.In centrifugal casting, a permanent mold is rotated continuously about its axis at high speeds (300 to 3000 rpm) as the molten metal is poured. The molten metal is centrifugally thrown towards the inside mold wall, where it solidifies after cooling. The casting is usually a fine-grained casting with a very fine-grained outer diameter, owing to chilling against the mould surface. Impurities and inclusions are thrown to the surface of the inside diameter, which can be machined away.

Casting machines may be either horizontal or vertical-axis.Horizontal axis machines are preferred for long, thin cylinders, vertical machines for rings.As a highly efficient and low-cost special casting method, horizontal centrifugal casting occupies a decisive position in material molding methods.

Most castings are solidified from the outside first. This may be used to encourage directional solidification of the casting, and thus give useful metallurgical properties to it. Often the inner and outer layers are discarded and only the intermediary columnar zone is used.

Some centrifuges are used to separate chemicals; others are used to remove impurities in metals by centrifugal casting processes. Although there are a lot of the fabricating techniques of functionally gradient material (FGM), the centrifugal casting method is more effective, cheaper and easier to operate.