Hughes Pumps provide metal for water atomising 05 February 2014

Hughes Pumps has supplied three HPS5000 high-pressure pump sets to "one of the world's leading South Korean steel manufacturers" as part of a water atomising project – a process that handles huge throughputs on a single melt stream, so improving performance and operating costs.

The process involves molten metal being poured through a high-pressure water spray ring fitted with fanjet nozzles that atomise the metal into powder, typically used for sintering engineering components.

Water atomisation was chosen because it produces large surface area, irregular shaped particles as well as allowing large processing rates of up to 1,000kg per minute.

Powder metallurgy parts produced by pressing and sintering rely upon the irregular shapes to produce the compressibility and locking that holds the parts in their green shape.

The Hughes Pump's system comprises two duty and one standby pump, each with a performance of 750 lpm at 140bar. Each pump is driven by a 200kW electric motor.

A Hughes spokesperson states that HPS5000 pumps were chosen for their quintuplex (five cylinder) design, which enables a smoother output than triplex pumps. They were also fitted with discharge pulsation dampers to smooth the output further for the extensive run of rigid stainless steel discharge pipework involved.

The pumps incorporate pneumatic dump/pressure regulating valves controlled by a central PLC to enable remote on/off load control and pressure adjustment.

Brian Tinham

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