Fabrication of a Stainless-Steel Pump Impeller by Integrated 3D Sand Printing and Casting: Mechanical Characterization and Performance Study in a Chemical Plant

Abstract

The emergence of additive manufacturing is renovating the landscape of available production technologies. In this paper, we describe the fabrication of a closed vane pump impeller (f 206 mm, height 68 mm, weight 4 kg) by binder jetting 3D printing of a sand mould followed by casting using stainless steel 316 to create an identical copy of a part in service in a chemical plant in Tarragona, Spain. The original part was reverse engineered and used to create a sand mould by binder jetting 3D printing on which new impellers were fabricated by casting. Metallographic studies showed an austenitic matrix with 6.3% of ferritic phase and 40 μm × 8 μm ferrite grains without precipitated carbides. The impeller was put into operation in a centrifugal pump at a polyol/polyglycol plant belonging to Dow Chemical Ibérica SL from October 2020 to April 2021. Process variables related to the pump behaviour were compared with the same variables obtained in previous cycles with the original impeller for three different product viscosities (30, 180, and 500 cSt). At 500 cSt, the average current consumption was 9.34 A as compared with the 9.41 A measured with the original impeller. Similarly, the pump pressure remained essentially constant during process operation with both impellers (3.97 bar with the new impeller vs. 3.99 bar with the old). Other monitored parameters (product flow, tank level) were similar in both cases, validating the fabrication strategy from an operational point of view. This work further demonstrated that the implementation of additive manufacturing technologies in chemical process engineering is a useful solution to fabricate spare parts that are difficult to replicate with other technologies, providing consequent economic benefits.

Using adaptive slicing method and variable binder amount algorithm in binder jetting

“…Impeller models have been widely used in the literature to measure the performance of 3D printers. There are many studies using impeller models (Peng et al , 2022; Mao et al , 2021; Hernández and Fragoso, 2022; Jayawardane et al , 2022; Raghavan et al , 2022; Kapil et al , 2018). Therefore, the impeller model was chosen to see the effects of adaptive slicing.…”

“…Many studies investigate surface quality for binder jetting (Myers et al, 2019;Miyanaji et al, 2018;Song and Nur, 2004;Huang et al, 2019;Rishmawi et al, 2018;Zhao et al, 2020;Hodder and Chalaturnyk, 2019;Ur Rehman and Sglavo, 2022;Sadeghi Borujeni et al, 2022;Zhao et al, 2022;Marczyk et al, 2022). Hartmann et al (2022) tried removing the staircase effect using the greyscale method. They controlled the saturation by droplet size variation.…”

Numerical Simulation of Sand Casting of Stainless Steel Pump Impeller

“…This method involves creating a mold from sand, into which molten metal is poured and allowed to solidify. However, its limitations in dimensional accuracy and surface finish compared to alternative manufacturing technologies highlight the need for ongoing advancements and innovations to improve the quality and efficiency of sand casting processes, ensuring its continued relevance in the modern manufacturing landscape [14][15][16][17][18].…”

Reverse Engineering of Parts with Asymmetrical Properties Using Replacement Materials

“…In their study, an impeller was engineered by using RE techniques and fabricated by selective laser melting (SLM) method. In addition, Hernández and Fragoso [26] studied manufacture of a pump impeller by integration of 3D sand printing and casting. An impeller was scanned by 3D scanner.…”