2012 Casting Competition:
Booming Fracking Industry Calls for Casting
A weldment to casting conversion by Monarch Industries won this year’s annual casting contest. Ten others earned Best-In- Class and Honorable Mention status. SHANNON WETZEL, SENIOR EDITOR
casting job could follow the guidelines established with a mining equipment transmission component. When Caterpillar Inc. wanted to
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convert a 36-piece steel weldment to a gray iron casting, it sent senior engineer Darryl Hudson to visit Monarch in person. After two days of tours and discussion, both Cater- pillar and the casting supplier had a better understanding of each other’s requirements. “It was the perfect scenario to have the design engineer here,” Downing said. “Tose two days were so valuable after the fact to know where Darryl and [Monarch] wanted to go with the part.” After several rounds of design
iterations, Hudson ended up with a single gray iron casting optimized for manufacturability, along with new casting design knowledge he has been able to apply to other parts. “We tried talking about the part
over the phone and with web con- ferencing, but until I saw it up close, it didn’t sink in,” Hudson said. “For me, actually seeing what they do to pull the pattern away from the mold helped more than understanding the process in theory.”
Meeting Demand The 610-lb. transmission housing
is connected to a 2,300-hp transmis-
Caterpillar worked closely with Monarch Industries to improve the castability of the torque converter housing from the original weldment design.
May 2012 MODERN CASTING | 21
att Downing, pattern shop supervisor, Winnipeg, Canada, wishes every new
sion and supports the torque con- verter components used in hydrau- lic fracture mining equipment. Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is a method of mining used on wells to extract gas or oil from the rock, stone or shale of a reservoir. It’s often used to rejuvenate wells that have stopped producing liquid oil or gas. The transmission turns a large pump in the fracking equipment to pump a slurry (often a mixture of water and sand) into the ground, which creates cracks in the rock, freeing up the oil. Once the slurry is pumped back up, the oil is able to flow out of the well.
Originally, Caterpillar sourced the housing for the torque converter (which absorbs the power of the engine) from a machine fabricator. But lead times were long, and capacity was limited. According to energy analyst
Michael Economides of the energy industry publication Energy Tribune, the estimated size of the global hydraulic fracturing industry grew from $2.8 billion in 1999 to $20 bil- lion in 2011. Further growth is lim- ited by how quickly fracking equip- ment can be built. While Caterpillar declined to comment on the specific volumes it produces for the market,
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