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Improvement of quality and yield for investment casting of centrifugal pump impeller by tilting mold and optimizing runner/riser system

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Abstract

Impellers must have no defects to endure vibration and centrifugal force. The shell for producing the impeller is located at tilt and the runner/riser system is optimized to obtain good quality casting and increase the casting yield. Sprue is adopted as riser to increase casting yield and ProCAST is employed to analyze solidification behavior of molten metal according to dimensions of the riser and gate. Although the diameter of riser was decreased from 133 to 66 mm through the simulation, no shrinkage defect was occurred in the castings due to the proper size and location of the runner/riser system. The occurring of the gas and non-metal inclusion defects was evaluated in castings by tilting the shell at 0°, 5°, 10°, 15° and 20°. The ultrasonic detecting results show that the proper design of the runner/riser systems and mold tiling eliminated the casting defects such as shrinkage, gas and non-metal inclusion. In addition, the casting yield was increased from 41.5 to 65.2%.

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Data availability

The authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within this article.

Code availability

The code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author [Yu-Chol Kim], upon a reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to express their gratitude to the editors, the authors of the references and the reviewers for their helpful suggestions for improvement and publication of this paper.

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This research work was not funded.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Materials Science and Technology, Kim Chaek University of Technology, 60 Kyogu, Pyongyang, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea

    Yu-Chol Kim, Nong-I. Paek, Bok-Gyu Ri & Rim-Hyok O

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  1. Yu-Chol Kim
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  2. Nong-I. Paek
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  3. Bok-Gyu Ri
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  4. Rim-Hyok O
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Contributions

Yu Chol Kim presented the idea to enhance the quality and casting yield by optimizing runner/riser system and tilting the shell mold, and established the optimal casting process plan for the investment casting of centrifugal pump impeller.

Nong I Paek determined the process parameters for investment casting and the properties of thermo-physical properties of GX12Cr12 stainless steel used for the simulation of impeller, and tested the impeller castings.

Bok Gyu Ri calculated the gating system and ventilator to ensure the stable flow, and determined the size of riser to feed the shrinkage of impeller casting sufficiently for investment casting.

Rim Hyok O simulated the flow of molten metal in the shell mold and predicted the shrinkage formation probability by using ProCAST software to optimize the runner/riser system, and determined the mold tilt angle for the investment casting of pump impeller.

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Correspondence to Yu-Chol Kim.

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Kim, YC., Paek, NI., Ri, BG. et al. Improvement of quality and yield for investment casting of centrifugal pump impeller by tilting mold and optimizing runner/riser system. Int J Adv Manuf Technol 130, 2369–2379 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-023-12839-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-023-12839-3

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