Tag: valves

AMPO FOUNDRY HAS BEEN AWARDED WITH THE LARGEST VALVE CASTINGS CONTRACT IN ITS HISTORY

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A French valve manufacturer has trusted in AMPO FOUNDRY for the manufacture of a significant number of high added value safety valve castings for an important refinery in China, a project that is being executed by a leading Italian EPC. This contract award will be the largest contract ever signed in AMPO FOUNDRY’s 56 years history.

For the development and manufacturing of a total amount of 642 valve body castings and 160 valve piston castings, AMPO FOUNDRY will use its cutting-edge Sand Moulding and Centrifugal Spinning production technologies. In its Sand Moulding facilities, with a monthly production capacity of approximately 340 tonnes, AMPO can produce up to 5 ton castings and on the other hand, in its Centrifugal Spinning facilities, with a monthly production capacity of 450 tonnes, it covers 100-670mm external diameter in horizontal spinning and 430-1200mm external diameter in vertical spinning.

The weight of the valve castings will vary from 24 kgs to approximately 1 ton.

Moreover, some of the valve components will be machined on our brand-new machining facilities, where we have the most intelligent machine tools, together with weld overlay cladding technologies. Furthermore, due to the high criticality degree of those safety valve castings, exhaustive tests will also be performed by approved laboratories in order to guarantee castings’ complete reliability.

The highest technology capabilities and the already proven working experience will enable AMPO to comply with the very demanding lead-time on this project.

Safety valves must provide outstanding performance and exceptional reliability to customers for the most critical and severe applications. Consequently, it is important to count on an integrity foundry’s collaboration. AMPO FOUNDRY is an expert in high added value castings and it has a wide experience in casting development for severe service applications.

At AMPO FOUNDRY customers can find the most updated know-how and engineering services, offering the most reliable high added value castings.

AMPO FOUNDRY WAS AWARDED THE SUPPLY OF CASTINGS FOR 30 COKER VALVES

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AMPO FOUNDRY has delivered 30 fully machined casting sets in stainless steel, A217 GrC5 and A217 GrC12 materials to an international leading manufacturer of coker ball valves for refinery applications. In the case of coker ball valves it is important to consider that the embedding of abrasive particles in seat materials can abrade the ball surface and these grooves can then cause leak paths which further damage surfaces. Consequently, the solution is to use metal to metal seating, typically a hard-surfaced ball in nickel-boride or tungsten carbide versus a proven wear surface on the seats (such as Stellite 6). Moreover, the ball sphericity is also critical and that is why it is important to work with a foundry such as AMPO.

In this project, the 30 sets included the most important valve parts, such as bodies, body caps, balls and seats in different sizes and pressure ranges.

Whilst the stainless-steel balls were produced using the Centrifugally Spun process and were precision-machined, ground and hard-coated to a precise and controlled thickness in our brand-new machining workshop.  The seat surfaces and the ball sphere had to match accurately to provide a tight metal to metal seal.

On the other hand, the bodies and the body caps were cast in A217Gr C5 and A217 Gr C12 materials, produced in our cutting-edge Sand Moulding facilities and were also fully machined at our own facility. All of the components also underwent X-Ray and Dye Penetrant Non-Destructive Testing.

Coker ball valves must provide outstanding performance and exceptional reliability to customers for the most critical and tough refining applications, such as erosive and corrosive services, high temperature services, etc.  Consequently, it is important to count on an integrity foundry’s collaboration.  AMPO FOUNDRY is an expert in stainless steel, duplex & super duplex, low alloy and high alloy castings, and it has a wide experience in casting development for refinery applications.

At AMPO FOUNDRY customers can find the most updated know-how and engineering services, offering the most reliable fully machined castings for refining.

AMPO FOUNDRY PROVIDES STAINLESS STEEL & FULLY MACHINED CASTINGS FOR A WORLD LEADING ROTARY VALVES MANUFACTURER

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A world leading rotary valves manufacturer has trusted in AMPO FOUNDRY for the manufacture of finish machined stainless steel castings for its rotary valves. Those valves will be used for food and pharmaceutical applications worldwide.

Rotary valves are one of the most common means of feeding pneumatic conveyance systems, both pressure and vacuum types. There are many other applications where they are used simply for metering of a controlled feed rate. It is a compact mechanical device for continuously discharging bulk powders or granules under gravity flow and it is mainly used for food and pharmaceutical applications, such as in this case.

Common product characteristics, including being sticky, cohesive, corrosive, tendency to “build-up” on the swept surfaces, etc., are compatible with the use of stainless steel with polished or non-stick coated surfaces.

Consequently, all of the castings that AMPO FOUNDRY will supply will be stainless steel parts with excellent surface finish and will be produced using Ceramic Moulding Technology, which enables AMPO to offer large cast components as well as complex geometries, with the best surface finishes.

This moulding technology is moreover highly automated, and this has enabled it to increase its competitiveness.

All the components will be fully machined on a 5-axis machining center with FMS (Flexible Manufacturing System).  AMPO is currently completing the construction of a new 12,500m2 machining workshop in Idiazabal (Spain), where it has invested in intelligent machine tools.  Ampo’s machined components will provide the customer with a significant added value, i.e. a reduction in total cost and delivery lead time, in addition to improving quality control.