OPTIMIZING SHRINKAGE DEFECTS IN GREY CAST IRON BUTTERFLY VALVE CASTING: A SIMULATION AND EXPERIMENT-BASED APPROACH

Abstract

The study focused on addressing casting defects in green sand casting that have negatively impacted the quality of the butterfly valve body. By employing various methods such as observation, interviews, numerical experimentation, and simulation, the researchers aimed to develop and evaluate a sand-casting technique for the butterfly valve body. Solidworks software was used to model the component and its gating system, while ProCAST software enabled mold filling and solidification analyses. The goal was to minimize shrinkage porosities in the cast butterfly valve body by optimizing process parameters through numerical experiments and the Taguchi technique. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) using Minitab 18 software analyzed the results. Through this research, the sand mold-related defect was reduced from 10% to 3%, and the special shrinkage defect was reduced from 26% to 2% by using a simulation of casting.