Alberta, Canada has the world’s third largest oil reserves within the form of oil sands. Extracting and processing the oil from the sands and bedrock is a challenging course of and requires the biggest slurry pump within the oil sands trade.
When it comes to pumping slurry, there can be only a few applications which might be more difficult than the hydro-transport of industrial quality slurries in oil sands manufacturing. Not solely do the pumps have to contend with the extremely aggressive nature of the fluid being pumped, they are also anticipated to operate in a few 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 most important and heaviest slurry pump obtainable in the oil sands business and the newest in a line of highly effective high-pressure pumps provided by GIW.
Slurry transportation Slurry transport covers a substantial vary of business sectors, starting from food and beverage to mining. What is widespread to all, is that the pumps used must be capable of transport liquids containing particles and solids of various sizes and viscosities. In mining, dredging and oil sands production, the most important challenge is to accommodate high density slurry and highly abrasive grits.
It is essential that the slurry passes by way of the pump with the minimal quantity of wear and tear to the pump casing, impeller, shaft and sealing mechanism. Furthermore, the pump must be capable of delivering high flows and able to face up to harsh working environments.
Alberta in Canada has extensive 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 elimination of bituminous ore which is transported to a crushing plant. The crushed ore is then blended with heat water to type a dense slurry that could be transported within the pipeline in the path of extraction, where the bitumen is separated from the sand and rock. After extraction, the remaining solids (or tailings) are sometimes transported through totally different pumps to settling ponds.
The processes require extensive use of slurry and water transportation pumps capable of handling vast portions of liquids at high pressures and excessive temp- eratures. Drawing on its long expertise of designing slurry pumps for mining, GIW has custom-engineered slurry pumps that combine advanced materials, hydraulics and patented mechanical designs, the most recent of which is the TBC-92.
Meeting challenges Mollie Timmerman, GIW business growth supervisor, explains extra: “Our client wanted a better capability pump which was capable of 10,000–11,000 m3 per hour of output at nearly 40 m of developed head and a most working stress of 4000 kPa. The pump also wanted to be able to cross rocks of roughly a hundred thirty mm in diameter with a total passage size requirement of 10 in (or 254 mm) and deal with slurry densities in excess of 1.5 SG.
In addition, the customer was targeting a upkeep interval (operational time between deliberate maintenance) of around three,000 hours. They had expressed an curiosity in maximising the maintenance intervals and primarily based on preliminary put on indications, they are at present hoping to achieve around 6,000 hours between pump overhauls (i.e. 6–8 months).”
The instant utility for the first batch of GIW’s TBC-92 pumps in Alberta is in hydro-transport service where they are used to maneuver bitu- minous ore from the crusher to the extraction plant. The liquid pumped is a combination of water, bitumen, sand, and enormous rocks. Screens are in place to maintain these rocks to a manageable size for the process, but the high dimension can nonetheless usually reach as much as one hundred thirty mm in diameter or bigger.
The abrasive nature of the slurry is what separates a slurry pump from other pumps used in the business. Wear and erosion are facts of life, and GIW has decades of expertise within the design of slurry pumps and the development of materials to help extend the service life of these important components to match the deliberate 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 almost 10 years through- out Central and South America,” explains Mollie Timmerman. ”However, the customer’s application required a pump with greater strain capabilities and the capability of dealing with bigger rocks so we responded with the development of the TBC-92 which supplied the most effective answer for maximised manufacturing.”
The TBC series The construction style of GIW’s TBC pump vary features large, ribbed plates held together with tie bolts for very high-pressure service and maximum wear performance. First developed for dredge service, then later launched into the oil sands in the Nineteen Nineties, the TBC pump sequence has grown into a completely developed range of pumps serving the oil sands, phosphate, dredging and exhausting rock mining industries for tailings and hydrotransport purposes.
The pumps are often grouped together in booster stations to construct pressure as high as 750 psi (5171 kPa) to account for the pipe losses encountered over such lengthy distances. The robust building of the TBC pump is properly suited to do the job, whereas ensuring maximum availability of the tools beneath closely abrasive wear.
Capable of delivering pressure up to 37 bar and flows of more than 18,200m³/h and temperatures as much as 120o C, the TBC vary is a horizontal, finish suction centrifugal pump that gives maximum resistance to put on. Simple to keep up, the pump’s tie-bolt design transfers stress hundreds away from the damage resistant white iron casing to the non- bearing facet plates with out the utilization of heavy and unwieldy double-wall development.
The TBC-92 combines the most effective elements of earlier TBC fashions, including the TBC-84 oil sands tailing pump, also known as the Super Pump. The pump additionally incorporates features from GIW’s MDX product line, which is utilized in heavy-duty mining circuits throughout the world of onerous 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 embody a slurry diverter that dramatically will increase suction liner life by decreasing particle recirculation between the impeller and the liner. The large diameter impeller allows the pump to run at slower speeds so that put on life is enhanced. The decrease pace additionally gives the pump the power to function over a wider range of flows in order to accommodate fluctuating flow conditions.
To make maintenance easier, the pump is fitted with a particular two-piece suction plate design which helps to cut back software time and supply safer lifting. Customers obtain pump-specific lifting devices to facilitate the safe removal and installation of damage comp- onents. The pump also features a longlasting suction liner that might be adjusted without needing to shut the pump down.
New milestone The commissioning of the TBC-92 marks an important milestone for GIW, which now has pumps in service in any respect operating Canadian oil sands plants for hydrotransport functions. The TBC-92 has been designed to deal with heavy-duty slurry transport whereas offering a low total cost of possession. pressure gauge 2.5 นิ้ว and upkeep time help to maximise manufacturing and profit.
“This new pump incorporates the teachings learned from operating within the oil sands over many years, and features our newest hydraulic and put on technologies,” says Mollie Timmerman. “Because this is the heaviest TBC pump we have ever designed, explicit attention was given to maintainability, as properly as material choice and construction of the pressure-containing components.”
That GIW has established itself as a major force in pumping solutions for the oil sands trade is much from shocking on condition that it has been developing pumping applied sciences and wear resistant supplies in the global mining business since the 1940s.
These pumps have had a considerable influence 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 alongside a pipeline to the upgrader. The pipeline agitation assists in separating the bitumen from the sand as it is transported, plus there’s the extra benefit of eradicating the utilization of vehicles.
GIW has estimated that the cost of transferring oil sand in this way can reduce prices by US$2 a barrel, and it is much more environmentally pleasant. These pumps additionally play a serious position in transporting the coarse tailings to the tailings ponds. GIW supplies 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 elementary to the development of these merchandise. GIW has been acquiring slurry samples from customers over a few years for testing hydraulics and materials both for pumps and pipelines. Research & Development services embody a quantity of slurry test beds on the campus, together with a hydraulics laboratory that’s dedicated to pump efficiency testing.
These activities are central to the company’s pump improvement programmes. If firms 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 many circumstances the issue lies not with the pump however, but in the interplay between the pipeline and the pump.
Feedback from customers about appli- cations helps in the growth of latest instruments and pump designs. By bringing to- gether clients and teachers from all around the world to share their expertise and research with in-house experts, the massive funding in research, improvement and manufacturing has advanced the design of all of the GIW pump products,supplies and wear-resistant components.
The future “There is a transparent development toward larger pumps in mining and dredging and oil sands aren’t any exception,” comments 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 higher and better production and demanding the identical of the tools that retains their manufacturing moving. While these bigger pumps demand extra power, in addition they permit for larger production with much less downtime required for upkeep. 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 bigger facilities, bigger pipelines, and elevated production, all of which proceed to pattern larger yr after 12 months. Other clients and industries have also shown an interest in this measurement, and it would be no shock at all to see more of those pumps constructed in the near future for comparable applications.”
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