Numerical Investigation on the Effect of Mold Design on Shrinkage of Sand Casted Multistage BB3-6×6 Pump Casing

Design and manufacturing technology of high pressure multistage pumps which are commonly utilized in oil and gas industries, used to be imported from foreign companies. Due to international sanctions against I. R. Iran, it started to be designed and launched domestically. Nowadays, all production lines including design, manufacturing and testing of these pumps have been performed by Iranian experts and they are highly competitive with similar pumps available in international market. This study presents a part of research on first domestic BB3-6×6 multistage pump design and manufacturing as a national project. Pump casing was designed in and structural static analyses performed on it using Ansys. When the casing was approved, a gating system was devised on pump upper half casing and casting simulation was done by NovaCast. The effect of gating system on shrinkage defects was investigated. Results revealed that sprue size and riser location have a noticeable impact on shrinkage of part. This research illustrated that using simulation approach before manufacturing has a noticeable effect on production cost.