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 course of and requires the most important slurry pump within the oil sands business.
When it comes to pumping slurry, there may be very few applications that are more challenging than the hydro-transport of industrial quality slurries in oil sands manufacturing. Not solely do the pumps need to contend with the extremely aggressive nature of the fluid being pumped, they’re also expected to operate in a number of the harshest environments on the planet.
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 ninety two in (2337 mm) impeller, the TBC-92 is the largest and heaviest slurry pump available in the oil sands industry and the most recent in a line of powerful high-pressure pumps provided by GIW.
Slurry transportation Slurry transport covers a considerable range of business sectors, starting from meals and beverage to mining. What is widespread to all, is that the pumps used should have the flexibility to transport liquids containing particles and solids of various sizes and viscosities. In mining, dredging and oil sands manufacturing, the largest challenge is to accommodate high density slurry and extremely abrasive grits.
เกจวัดแรงดันถังออกซิเจน is crucial that the slurry passes via the pump with the minimal quantity of damage to the pump casing, impeller, shaft and sealing mechanism. Furthermore, the pump have to be able to delivering high flows and in a place to withstand harsh working environments.
Alberta in Canada has in depth oil reserves and these are within the form of oil sands. Extracting and processing the oil from the sands and bedrock is difficult, involving the removal of bituminous ore which is transported to a crushing plant. The crushed ore is then blended with heat water to kind a dense slurry that may be transported in the pipeline in direction of extraction, the place the bitumen is separated from the sand and rock. After extraction, the remaining solids (or tailings) are sometimes transported via totally different pumps to settling ponds.
The processes require in depth use of slurry and water transportation pumps capable of handling vast quantities of liquids at high pressures and excessive 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 enterprise development manager, explains more: “Our shopper wanted a better capability 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 stress of 4000 kPa. The pump additionally wanted to have the flexibility to pass rocks of roughly a hundred thirty mm in diameter with a complete passage size requirement of 10 in (or 254 mm) and handle slurry densities in excess of 1.5 SG.
In addition, the shopper was targeting a maintenance interval (operational time between deliberate maintenance) of around 3,000 hours. They had expressed an interest in maximising the maintenance intervals and primarily based on initial wear indications, they’re currently hoping to achieve round 6,000 hours between pump overhauls (i.e. 6–8 months).”
The quick utility for the primary batch of GIW’s TBC-92 pumps in Alberta is in hydro-transport service where they are used to move bitu- minous ore from the crusher to the extraction plant. The liquid pumped is a mix of water, bitumen, sand, and large rocks. Screens are in place to keep these rocks to a manageable size for the method, but the prime dimension can nonetheless usually attain as much as a hundred thirty mm in diameter or larger.
The abrasive nature of the slurry is what separates a slurry pump from other pumps used in the industry. Wear and erosion are facts of life, and GIW has a long time of expertise within the design of slurry pumps and the event of supplies to help lengthen the service life of those important parts to match the planned upkeep cycles within 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 nearly 10 years through- out Central and South America,” explains Mollie Timmerman. ”However, the customer’s utility required a pump with greater strain capabilities and the potential of handling bigger rocks so we responded with the development of the TBC-92 which provided the most effective answer for maximised manufacturing.”
The TBC sequence The building fashion of GIW’s TBC pump vary features giant, ribbed plates held along with tie bolts for very high-pressure service and most put on performance. First developed for dredge service, then later introduced into the oil sands within the 1990s, 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 sometimes grouped together in booster stations to build 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 well suited to do the job, while ensuring most availability of the tools under closely abrasive wear.
Capable of delivering pressure as much as 37 bar and flows of greater than 18,200m³/h and temperatures as a lot as 120o C, the TBC range is a horizontal, end suction centrifugal pump that gives most resistance to wear. Simple to keep up, the pump’s tie-bolt design transfers stress masses away from the wear resistant white iron casing to the non- bearing side plates without the utilization of heavy and unwieldy double-wall building.
The TBC-92 combines the most effective elements of earlier TBC models, including the TBC-84 oil sands tailing pump, also referred to as the Super Pump. The pump also incorporates options from GIW’s MDX product line, which is utilized in heavy-duty mining circuits throughout the world of hard 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 embody a slurry diverter that dramatically will increase suction liner life by reducing particle recirculation between the impeller and the liner. The massive diameter impeller allows the pump to run at slower speeds so that wear life is enhanced. The lower speed also offers the pump the flexibility to operate over a wider vary of flows so as to accommodate fluctuating circulate situations.
To make maintenance simpler, the pump is fitted with a special two-piece suction plate design which helps to reduce device time and supply safer lifting. Customers obtain pump-specific lifting units to facilitate the safe elimination and set up of wear and tear comp- onents. The pump also includes a longlasting suction liner that can be adjusted while not having to shut the pump down.
New milestone The commissioning of the TBC-92 marks an essential milestone for GIW, which now has pumps in service in any respect working Canadian oil sands crops for hydrotransport applications. The TBC-92 has been designed to sort out heavy-duty slurry transport whereas offering a low complete cost of possession. Minimal labour and upkeep time assist to maximise manufacturing and profit.
“This new pump incorporates the lessons realized from working within the oil sands over many years, and features our newest hydraulic and put on applied sciences,” says Mollie Timmerman. “Because this is the heaviest TBC pump we’ve ever designed, explicit attention was given to maintainability, as nicely as materials choice and development of the pressure-containing components.”
That GIW has established itself as a major drive in pumping options for the oil sands industry is far from stunning provided that it has been developing pumping technologies and put on resistant materials in the world mining trade since the Nineteen Forties.
These pumps have had a substantial impact on the means in which that excavated sand, rock and bitumen are transported to the upgrader plant. By including water to the excavated material it turns into extremely efficient to pump the slurry alongside a pipeline to the upgrader. The pipeline agitation assists in separating the bitumen from the sand as it is transported, plus there may be the extra good factor about removing using trucks.
GIW has estimated that the value of transferring oil sand in this method can cut prices by US$2 a barrel, and it’s way more environmentally pleasant. These pumps additionally play a major role 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 character of slurries and how they behave when being pumped has been fundamental to the event of those products. GIW has been obtaining slurry samples from clients over a few years for testing hydraulics and supplies both for pumps and pipelines. Research & Development facilities embody multiple slurry take a look at beds on the campus, along with a hydraulics laboratory that’s dedicated to pump efficiency testing.
These actions are central to the company’s pump development programmes. If corporations are experiencing problems the GIW R&D personnel can see where the problem lies and provide advice for remedial action. Experience does indicate that in many cases the issue lies not with the pump nevertheless, but in the interaction between the pipeline and the pump.
Feedback from prospects about appli- cations helps within the growth of recent instruments and pump designs. By bringing to- gether prospects and lecturers from everywhere in the world to share their experience and research with in-house specialists, the huge investment in research, development and manufacturing has advanced the design of all of the GIW pump products,supplies and wear-resistant elements.
The future “There is a transparent pattern toward bigger pumps in mining and dredging and oil sands aren’t any exception,” feedback Leo Perry, GIW lead product supervisor. “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 facilities for larger and better production and demanding the identical of the tools that retains their production transferring. While these larger pumps demand more power, additionally they allow for higher production with much less downtime required for maintenance. Overall, the effectivity 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 larger facilities, larger pipelines, and elevated manufacturing, all of which continue to development higher 12 months after year. Other prospects and industries have also shown an interest on this size, and it might be no shock in any respect to see more of these pumps built in the near future for comparable applications.”
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