A Study on Critical Points and Fatigue Behavior of a Gas Regulator Die-cast Mold through Numerical Simulation

Many industrial valves and gas regulators are manufactured by permanent-mold die-casting. Therefore, the design of such molds is recently of great importance. In this research, a gas regulator mold is numerically simulated and its stress and strain distributions are obtained to theoretically identify mold critical points and its fatigue behavior. To validate the simulation results, they are compared to those of failure areas of a manufactured mold which passed 150,000 working cycles. Von Mises stress is exerted for every single point of the mold. Stress distribution showed that the maximum stress occurs at the smallest cross-section area of the runner. Experimental study on the manufactured mold is also carried out and showed that the fatigue damage takes place exactly where the maximum stress exists. Moreover, the strain analysis proved that the maximum displacement occurs at the edges and cross-section areas with the most pressure and heat which is coincident to delamination areas of the manufactured mold.