Alberta, Canada has the world’s third largest oil reserves in the type of oil sands. Extracting and processing the oil from the sands and bedrock is a challenging process and requires the largest slurry pump in the oil sands industry.
When it involves pumping slurry, there could be very few functions that are more difficult than the hydro-transport of heavy-duty slurries in oil sands manufacturing. Not solely do the pumps need to cope with the extremely aggressive nature of the fluid being pumped, they’re additionally anticipated to function in some of the harshest environments in the world.
In January 2020, GIW Industries, Inc., a KSB firm, commissioned its largest ever heavy-duty centrifugal slurry pump for operation in Canada’s oil sands, particularly the Tie Bolt Construction (TBC-92). Named after its 92 in (2337 mm) impeller, the TBC-92 is the biggest and heaviest slurry pump out there in the oil sands trade and the most recent in a line of powerful high-pressure pumps offered by GIW.
Slurry transportation Slurry transport covers a substantial vary of business sectors, ranging from food and beverage to mining. What is common to all, is that the pumps used should have the power to transport liquids containing particles and solids of varying sizes and viscosities. In mining, dredging and oil sands production, the biggest challenge is to accommodate excessive density slurry and extremely abrasive grits.
It is important that the slurry passes via the pump with the minimal amount of damage to the pump casing, impeller, shaft and sealing mechanism. Furthermore, the pump have to be able to delivering excessive flows and able to face up to harsh working environments.
Alberta in Canada has intensive oil reserves and these are within the type of oil sands. Extracting and processing the oil from the sands and bedrock is difficult, involving the elimination of bituminous ore which is transported to a crushing plant. The crushed ore is then mixed with warm water to type a dense slurry that can be transported in the pipeline in course of extraction, the place the bitumen is separated from the sand and rock. After extraction, the remaining solids (or tailings) are often transported via completely different pumps to settling ponds.
The processes require in depth use of slurry and water transportation pumps capable of handling huge portions of liquids at high pressures and high temp- eratures. Drawing on its lengthy expertise of designing slurry pumps for mining, GIW has custom-engineered slurry pumps that mix superior supplies, hydraulics and patented mechanical designs, the newest of which is the TBC-92.
Meeting challenges Mollie Timmerman, GIW business growth supervisor, explains more: “Our client needed the next capability pump which was capable of 10,000–11,000 m3 per hour of output at practically 40 m of developed head and a maximum working strain of 4000 kPa. The pump also needed to have the ability to cross rocks of approximately a hundred thirty mm in diameter with a complete passage measurement requirement of 10 in (or 254 mm) and handle slurry densities in excess of 1.5 SG.
In addition, the client was concentrating on a upkeep interval (operational time between planned maintenance) of round 3,000 hours. They had expressed an interest in maximising the maintenance intervals and based on preliminary wear indications, they’re at present hoping to realize around 6,000 hours between pump overhauls (i.e. 6–8 months).”
The quick utility for the first batch of GIW’s TBC-92 pumps in Alberta is in hydro-transport service the place they’re used to maneuver bitu- minous ore from the crusher to the extraction plant. The liquid pumped is a mixture of water, bitumen, sand, and huge rocks. Screens are in place to maintain these rocks to a manageable measurement for the method, however the top measurement can nonetheless often attain up to a hundred thirty mm in diameter or larger.
The abrasive nature of the slurry is what separates a slurry pump from different pumps used in the trade. Wear and erosion are information of life, and GIW has decades of expertise within the design of slurry pumps and the development of materials to assist extend the service life of these critical elements to match the planned maintenance cycles in the plant.
“GIW already had a pump able to the output requirement, this being the MDX-750, which has been a popular dimension in mill duties for nearly 10 years through- out Central and South America,” explains Mollie Timmerman. ”However, the customer’s software required a pump with larger strain capabilities and the capability of handling bigger rocks so we responded with the event of the TBC-92 which offered the best answer for maximised production.”
The TBC series The construction style of GIW’s TBC pump range features large, ribbed plates held together with tie bolts for very high-pressure service and most wear performance. First developed for dredge service, then later launched into the oil sands in the 1990s, the TBC pump series has grown into a completely developed range of pumps serving the oil sands, phosphate, dredging and hard rock mining industries for tailings and hydrotransport functions.
The pumps are sometimes grouped collectively in booster stations to construct pressure as excessive as 750 psi (5171 kPa) to account for the pipe losses encountered over such long distances. The robust development of the TBC pump is nicely suited to do the job, while ensuring most availability of the equipment underneath closely abrasive put on.
Capable of delivering stress as much as 37 bar and flows of more than 18,200m³/h and temperatures as a lot as 120o C, the TBC range is a horizontal, finish suction centrifugal pump that provides most resistance to wear. Simple to keep up, the pump’s tie-bolt design transfers stress hundreds away from the wear resistant white iron casing to the non- bearing facet plates with out the use of heavy and unwieldy double-wall building.
เกจวัดแรง -92 combines the best components of earlier TBC models, including the TBC-84 oil sands tailing pump, also called the Super Pump. The pump also incorporates options from GIW’s MDX product line, which is utilized in heavy-duty mining circuits all through the world of exhausting rock mining.
In total, the TBC-92 weighs about 209,000 lbs (95,000 kg), which is roughly equivalent to a fully-loaded Airbus A321 aeroplane. The casing alone weighs 34,000 lbs (15,500 kg). Key features of the pump include a slurry diverter that dramatically will increase suction liner life by reducing particle recirculation between the impeller and the liner. The massive diameter impeller permits the pump to run at slower speeds in order that wear life is enhanced. The decrease speed also offers the pump the ability to operate over a wider vary of flows to find a way to accommodate fluctuating move circumstances.
To make upkeep easier, the pump is fitted with a special two-piece suction plate design which helps to reduce back device time and supply safer lifting. Customers receive pump-specific lifting units to facilitate the safe removal and set up of wear comp- onents. The pump additionally features a longlasting suction liner that can be adjusted without having to shut the pump down.
New milestone The commissioning of the TBC-92 marks an necessary milestone for GIW, which now has pumps in service in any respect operating Canadian oil sands crops for hydrotransport applications. The TBC-92 has been designed to deal with heavy-duty slurry transport whereas offering a low total cost of ownership. Minimal labour and maintenance time help to maximise production and revenue.
“This new pump incorporates the lessons learned from working within the oil sands over many years, and features our latest hydraulic and put on technologies,” says Mollie Timmerman. “Because this is the heaviest TBC pump we now have ever designed, specific consideration was given to maintainability, as properly as material choice and building of the pressure-containing elements.”
That GIW has established itself as a big pressure in pumping options for the oil sands trade is way from stunning given that it has been growing pumping applied sciences and wear resistant supplies within the international mining trade because the Nineteen Forties.
These pumps have had a considerable impact on the greatest way that excavated sand, rock and bitumen are transported to the upgrader plant. By including water to the excavated material it becomes highly efficient to pump the slurry along a pipeline to the upgrader. The pipeline agitation assists in separating the bitumen from the sand as it’s transported, plus there’s the additional good factor about eradicating using vans.
GIW has estimated that the value of moving oil sand on this method can cut costs by US$2 a barrel, and it’s far more environmentally friendly. These pumps also play a major position in transporting the coarse tailings to the tailings ponds. GIW provides pumps used within the extraction course of and other areas of production (HVF, MDX, LSA).
Understanding slurries Understanding the nature of slurries and how they behave when being pumped has been elementary to the event of these products. GIW has been obtaining slurry samples from customers over a few years for testing hydraulics and materials both for pumps and pipelines. Research & Development amenities embrace multiple slurry check beds on the campus, together with a hydraulics laboratory that is dedicated to pump performance testing.
These actions are central to the company’s pump improvement programmes. If corporations are experiencing issues the GIW R&D personnel can see the place the problem lies and supply advice for remedial action. Experience does point out that in plenty of cases the problem lies not with the pump nevertheless, however in the interaction between the pipeline and the pump.
Feedback from clients about appli- cations helps within the improvement of latest tools and pump designs. By bringing to- gether clients and academics from all round the world to share their experience and research with in-house consultants, the huge investment in research, growth and manufacturing has advanced the design of the entire GIW pump merchandise,supplies and wear-resistant elements.
The future “There is a transparent trend towards larger pumps in mining and dredging and oil sands are not any exception,” feedback Leo Perry, GIW lead product manager. “The first TBC pump in the oil sands industry was the TBC-46 (46 in being the diameter of the impeller). Customers are designing their amenities for larger and better production and demanding the same of the equipment that keeps their manufacturing moving. While these larger pumps demand more energy, in addition they enable for higher production with much less downtime required for upkeep. Overall, the efficiency improves when compared to the identical output from a bigger quantity of smaller pumps. “
In conclusion, he says: “Larger pumps go hand-in-hand with bigger facilities, larger pipelines, and increased manufacturing, all of which continue to pattern greater 12 months after 12 months. Other clients and industries have also proven an interest in this measurement, and it would be no shock at all to see more of those pumps built within the near future for similar applications.”
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