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Casting begins in a dark and cavernous
area of the foundry known as the charging room. This
is the heavy heart of the foundry, dark and hot, and
intense, glowing with an eerie orange light that flickers
over the sweaty faces of the technicians. Industrial
fans stir the air. Here the metals are weighed like
the ingredients of a giant cake, making sure they meet
the exact chemical compositions. |
Charging
Room |
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The metals are placed in induction furnaces
- huge pots wrapped in electric coils and lined with fired
bricks. As the furnace operates, an alternating current sends
2000 volts back and forth through the coils or inductor, 50
times each second, creating an alternating, magnetic field
inside the coils. This changing magnetic field induces eddy
currents in the metals within the pot. These eddy currents
generate heat as they dissipate, and it is this heat that
melts the metals. Since nothing touches anything present within
the pot, they remain pure and uncontaminated. |
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Once the metal reaches the right temperature,
technicians pour a small checker-sized sample for testing.
They cool it, sand it, and place it in an optical emission
spectrometer. The spectrometer strikes a high-energy
arc of the sample, vaporizing a small portion of it.
Then it measures intensity and ware length of the light
emitted by the vaporized gases and compares them to
standard samples. In less than a minute, it tells the
composition of the material. If the metal meets the
metallurgical specifications, it is poured. If not,
it is adjusted and retested. |
Spectrometer
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When the molten metal reaches
the right temperature and the chemical composition
is within specifications, the metal is poured
into a portable ladle. Overhead cranes move
the filled ladle to the pour bay. The metal
undergoes final de-slagging. |
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After cooling, the pump castings are removed
from the flasks. Much of the sand will be
disintegrated because the heat of the castings
has broken the chemical
bonds that had held it together. |
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The rough castings go to the cleaning
shed, while the separate flasks containing the residual
mould sand are removed. |
Fettling
Field |
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Once the pumps castings are clean,
they are heat-treated and stress
relieved in huge industrial ovens to refine
the microstructure and bring our best metallurgical
properties. |
Heat
treatment |
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After heat treatment, the castings
go to the machine shop. Here, sparks fly as the pump
castings are ground and machined to exact design dimensions.
This is accomplished using variety of machine tools
from conventional boring mills, lathes, and grinders
to state of art computer numerical
control (CNC) machines used for critical
dimensions. |
CNC
Machines |
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The casings are hydro-tested
and the impellers are dynamically balanced. Then all
the castings are moved to the assembly area. In this
airy space they are cleaned, assembled and sent for
performance testing. |
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The pumps are tested in the most modern
test bed for Capacity Vs Head,
Capacity Vs Power, Capacity Vs Efficiency and Capacity
Vs NPSH®. Then the pumps are painted,
tagged and packed.
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Dynamic
balancing |
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Pump
Testing |
Finished
Products |
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