Alberta, Canada has the world’s third largest oil reserves within the type of oil sands. Extracting and processing the oil from the sands and bedrock is a challenging process and requires the biggest slurry pump in the oil sands trade.
When it involves pumping slurry, there could be very few functions that are more challenging than the hydro-transport of industrial quality slurries in oil sands production. pressure gauge หน้าปัด 4 นิ้ว do the pumps need to deal with the highly aggressive nature of the fluid being pumped, they’re additionally expected to function in a few of the harshest environments on the earth.
In January 2020, GIW Industries, Inc., a KSB company, 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 obtainable in the oil sands business and the newest in a line of highly effective high-pressure pumps offered by GIW.
Slurry transportation Slurry transport covers a considerable vary of business sectors, ranging from meals and beverage to mining. What is frequent to all, is that the pumps used must be able to transport liquids containing particles and solids of various sizes and viscosities. In mining, dredging and oil sands manufacturing, the biggest problem is to accommodate excessive density slurry and highly abrasive grits.
It is essential that the slurry passes via the pump with the minimal quantity of wear to the pump casing, impeller, shaft and sealing mechanism. Furthermore, the pump should be capable of delivering high flows and in a position to stand up to harsh operating environments.
Alberta in Canada has intensive oil reserves and these are in the type of oil sands. Extracting and processing the oil from the sands and bedrock is challenging, involving the elimination of bituminous ore which is transported to a crushing plant. The crushed ore is then blended with warm water to form a dense slurry that might be transported in the pipeline in the course of extraction, where the bitumen is separated from the sand and rock. After extraction, the remaining solids (or tailings) are sometimes transported by way of totally different pumps to settling ponds.
The processes require extensive use of slurry and water transportation pumps able to handling vast quantities of liquids at excessive pressures and excessive temp- eratures. Drawing on its lengthy experience of designing slurry pumps for mining, GIW has custom-engineered slurry pumps that combine advanced materials, hydraulics and patented mechanical designs, the newest of which is the TBC-92.
Meeting challenges Mollie Timmerman, GIW business improvement manager, explains extra: “Our client needed a higher capacity pump which was able to 10,000–11,000 m3 per hour of output at nearly forty m of developed head and a most working strain of 4000 kPa. The pump additionally wanted to be able to cross rocks of approximately one hundred thirty mm in diameter with a complete passage dimension requirement of 10 in (or 254 mm) and handle slurry densities in excess of 1.5 SG.
In addition, the customer was focusing on a upkeep interval (operational time between planned maintenance) of round 3,000 hours. They had expressed an curiosity in maximising the upkeep intervals and based mostly on preliminary wear indications, they are presently hoping to achieve around 6,000 hours between pump overhauls (i.e. 6–8 months).”
เกจวัดแรงดันปั๊มลมpuma 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 combination of water, bitumen, sand, and large rocks. Screens are in place to keep these rocks to a manageable measurement for the method, but the high dimension can still typically reach as much as a hundred thirty mm in diameter or bigger.
The abrasive nature of the slurry is what separates a slurry pump from other pumps used within the business. Wear and erosion are facts of life, and GIW has decades of experience in the design of slurry pumps and the development of supplies to help lengthen the service life of those crucial components to match the planned upkeep cycles in the plant.
“GIW already had a pump able to the output requirement, this being the MDX-750, which has been a well-liked measurement in mill duties for almost 10 years through- out Central and South America,” explains Mollie Timmerman. ”However, the customer’s software required a pump with larger stress capabilities and the capability of handling bigger rocks so we responded with the event of the TBC-92 which supplied the best answer for maximised production.”
The TBC collection The development fashion of GIW’s TBC pump vary options giant, ribbed plates held along with tie bolts for very high-pressure service and most put on efficiency. First developed for dredge service, then later introduced into the oil sands within the Nineties, the TBC pump series has grown into a completely developed vary of pumps serving the oil sands, phosphate, dredging and onerous rock mining industries for tailings and hydrotransport purposes.
The pumps are often grouped together in booster stations to construct stress as excessive as 750 psi (5171 kPa) to account for the pipe losses encountered over such long distances. The sturdy construction of the TBC pump is well suited to do the job, while ensuring maximum availability of the equipment beneath heavily abrasive wear.
Capable of delivering strain as a lot as 37 bar and flows of greater than 18,200m³/h and temperatures up to 120o C, the TBC range is a horizontal, end suction centrifugal pump that gives most resistance to wear. Simple to maintain, 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 using heavy and unwieldy double-wall development.
The TBC-92 combines the best elements of earlier TBC models, together with the TBC-84 oil sands tailing pump, also identified as the Super Pump. The pump also incorporates options from GIW’s MDX product line, which is used in heavy-duty mining circuits throughout 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 options of the pump embrace a slurry diverter that dramatically increases suction liner life by decreasing particle recirculation between the impeller and the liner. The massive diameter impeller permits the pump to run at slower speeds in order that put on life is enhanced. The lower velocity also provides the pump the ability to function over a wider vary of flows to have the ability to accommodate fluctuating circulate conditions.
To make maintenance simpler, the pump is fitted with a particular two-piece suction plate design which helps to scale back device time and supply safer lifting. Customers receive pump-specific lifting gadgets to facilitate the safe removal and installation of wear and tear comp- onents. The pump also includes 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 at all operating Canadian oil sands crops for hydrotransport purposes. The TBC-92 has been designed to tackle heavy-duty slurry transport whereas providing a low complete price of ownership. Minimal labour and upkeep time assist to maximise manufacturing and profit.
“This new pump incorporates the lessons learned from working within the oil sands over a few years, and options our newest hydraulic and put on technologies,” says Mollie Timmerman. “Because this is the heaviest TBC pump we now have ever designed, particular attention was given to maintainability, in addition to materials selection and construction of the pressure-containing parts.”
That GIW has established itself as a major force in pumping solutions for the oil sands business is much from shocking given that it has been developing pumping applied sciences and wear resistant materials in the world mining business since the Nineteen Forties.
These pumps have had a substantial impression on the way in which 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 is the extra benefit of eradicating the use of vans.
GIW has estimated that the worth of transferring oil sand on this way can minimize costs by US$2 a barrel, and it’s way more environmentally pleasant. These pumps also play a serious role in transporting the coarse tailings to the tailings ponds. GIW provides pumps used in the extraction course of and different areas of production (HVF, MDX, LSA).
Understanding slurries Understanding the nature of slurries and how they behave when being pumped has been basic to the development of these merchandise. GIW has been acquiring slurry samples from customers over many years for testing hydraulics and materials each for pumps and pipelines. Research & Development services include a number of slurry test 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 problems the GIW R&D personnel can see the place the problem lies and supply recommendation for remedial action. Experience does point out that in lots of instances the problem lies not with the pump however, but in the interaction between the pipeline and the pump.
Feedback from customers about appli- cations helps in the improvement of new tools and pump designs. By bringing to- gether clients and academics from all over the world to share their expertise and research with in-house consultants, the large investment in analysis, growth and manufacturing has advanced the design of all the GIW pump products,materials and wear-resistant components.
The future “There is a clear trend towards bigger pumps in mining and dredging and oil sands are no exception,” feedback Leo Perry, GIW lead product supervisor. “The first TBC pump within the oil sands business was the TBC-46 (46 in being the diameter of the impeller). Customers are designing their amenities for greater and better manufacturing and demanding the same of the equipment that keeps their manufacturing transferring. While these bigger pumps demand extra energy, in addition they permit for greater manufacturing with much less downtime required for upkeep. Overall, the efficiency improves when compared to the same output from a larger quantity of smaller pumps. “
In conclusion, he says: “Larger pumps go hand-in-hand with larger facilities, bigger pipelines, and increased manufacturing, all of which proceed to pattern greater 12 months after 12 months. Other customers and industries have additionally proven an interest in this size, and it might be no surprise at all to see extra of those pumps constructed in the close to future for similar purposes.”
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