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 most important slurry pump in the oil sands trade.
When it comes to pumping slurry, there could be very few applications that are tougher than the hydro-transport of industrial quality slurries in oil sands production. Not solely do the pumps have to deal with the highly aggressive nature of the fluid being pumped, they are additionally expected to function in a few of the harshest environments in the world.
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, specifically the Tie Bolt Construction (TBC-92). Named after its ninety two in (2337 mm) impeller, the TBC-92 is the most important and heaviest slurry pump out there within the oil sands business and the latest in a line of highly effective high-pressure pumps offered by GIW.
Slurry transportation Slurry transport covers a substantial range of industry sectors, starting from food and beverage to mining. What is frequent to all, is that the pumps used must be succesful of transport liquids containing particles and solids of varying sizes and viscosities. In mining, dredging and oil sands manufacturing, the largest challenge is to accommodate excessive density slurry and highly abrasive grits.
It is important 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 must be able to delivering excessive flows and capable of face up to harsh working environments.
Alberta in Canada has in depth oil reserves and these are in the form of oil sands. Extracting and processing the oil from the sands and bedrock is challenging, involving the removal of bituminous ore which is transported to a crushing plant. เกจวัดแรงดันnuovafima crushed ore is then combined with heat water to type a dense slurry that can be transported within the pipeline towards extraction, the place the bitumen is separated from the sand and rock. After extraction, the remaining solids (or tailings) are often transported by way of different pumps to settling ponds.
The processes require intensive use of slurry and water transportation pumps capable of handling vast portions of liquids at excessive pressures and high temp- eratures. Drawing on its lengthy expertise of designing slurry pumps for mining, GIW has custom-engineered slurry pumps that mix advanced supplies, hydraulics and patented mechanical designs, the latest of which is the TBC-92.
Meeting challenges Mollie Timmerman, GIW business improvement manager, explains more: “Our shopper needed the next capability pump which was capable of 10,000–11,000 m3 per hour of output at practically forty m of developed head and a maximum working strain of 4000 kPa. The pump additionally needed to have the ability to cross rocks of roughly 130 mm in diameter with a total passage measurement requirement of 10 in (or 254 mm) and deal with slurry densities in extra of 1.5 SG.
In addition, the customer was focusing on a maintenance interval (operational time between planned maintenance) of around three,000 hours. They had expressed an curiosity in maximising the upkeep intervals and based mostly on initial wear indications, they’re at present hoping to realize around 6,000 hours between pump overhauls (i.e. 6–8 months).”
The instant application for the first 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 combination of water, bitumen, sand, and enormous rocks. Screens are in place to keep these rocks to a manageable dimension for the process, but the high size can nonetheless usually 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 within the business. Wear and erosion are information of life, and GIW has a long time of expertise in the design of slurry pumps and the development of supplies to assist extend the service life of these important elements to match the deliberate upkeep cycles within the plant.
“GIW already had a pump capable of the output requirement, this being the MDX-750, which has been a popular 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 aptitude of dealing with bigger rocks so we responded with the event of the TBC-92 which offered the best answer for maximised manufacturing.”
The TBC series The building type of GIW’s TBC pump range features 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 Nineteen Nineties, the TBC pump series has grown into a completely developed range of pumps serving the oil sands, phosphate, dredging and exhausting rock mining industries for tailings and hydrotransport functions.
The pumps are often grouped together in booster stations to construct strain as high 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 equipment underneath heavily abrasive put on.
Capable of delivering stress up to 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 offers maximum resistance to wear. Simple to take care of, the pump’s tie-bolt design transfers stress hundreds away from the damage resistant white iron casing to the non- bearing facet plates without using heavy and unwieldy double-wall building.
The TBC-92 combines the most effective parts of earlier TBC models, including 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 all through the world of onerous rock mining.
In whole, the TBC-92 weighs about 209,000 lbs (95,000 kg), which is roughly equal to a fully-loaded Airbus A321 aeroplane. The casing alone weighs 34,000 lbs (15,500 kg). Key features of the pump embrace 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 in order that put on life is enhanced. The decrease pace additionally provides the pump the power to function over a wider range of flows so as to accommodate fluctuating circulate situations.
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 secure removing and set up of wear and tear comp- onents. The pump also contains 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 necessary milestone for GIW, which now has pumps in service in any respect working Canadian oil sands plants for hydrotransport applications. The TBC-92 has been designed to sort out heavy-duty slurry transport whereas offering a low complete price of ownership. Minimal labour and maintenance time help to maximise manufacturing and profit.
“This new pump incorporates the lessons realized from operating in the oil sands over a few years, and features our latest hydraulic and wear technologies,” says Mollie Timmerman. “Because that is the heaviest TBC pump we have ever designed, particular consideration was given to maintainability, as properly as materials choice and building of the pressure-containing components.”
That GIW has established itself as a big pressure in pumping solutions for the oil sands trade is way from shocking on circumstance that it has been creating pumping applied sciences and put on resistant materials in the international mining trade for the explanation that Nineteen Forties.
These pumps have had a considerable 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 becomes extremely efficient to pump the slurry along a pipeline to the upgrader. The pipeline agitation assists in separating the bitumen from the sand as it is transported, plus there is the extra good thing about eradicating the use of trucks.
GIW has estimated that the worth of shifting oil sand in this means can reduce prices by US$2 a barrel, and it’s much more environmentally pleasant. These pumps also play a major role in transporting the coarse tailings to the tailings ponds. GIW supplies pumps used within the extraction course of and other areas of manufacturing (HVF, MDX, LSA).
Understanding slurries Understanding the character of slurries and the way they behave when being pumped has been elementary to the event of these products. GIW has been obtaining slurry samples from customers over many years for testing hydraulics and supplies each for pumps and pipelines. Research & Development facilities include a quantity of slurry test beds on the campus, together with a hydraulics laboratory that’s dedicated to pump performance testing.
These actions are central to the company’s pump growth programmes. If companies are experiencing issues the GIW R&D personnel can see the place the problem lies and provide recommendation for remedial action. Experience does point out that in lots of cases the problem lies not with the pump nonetheless, but within the interplay between the pipeline and the pump.
Feedback from prospects about appli- cations helps within the development of recent instruments and pump designs. By bringing to- gether clients and lecturers from everywhere in the world to share their experience and analysis with in-house specialists, the massive funding in analysis, development and manufacturing has advanced the design of the entire GIW pump products,supplies and wear-resistant elements.
The future “There is a transparent development toward bigger 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 trade was the TBC-46 (46 in being the diameter of the impeller). Customers are designing their facilities for higher and better production and demanding the identical of the gear that retains their manufacturing moving. While these bigger pumps demand extra energy, additionally they allow for higher manufacturing with much less downtime required for upkeep. Overall, the effectivity improves when compared to the same output from a larger amount of smaller pumps. “
In conclusion, he says: “Larger pumps go hand-in-hand with bigger services, bigger pipelines, and elevated manufacturing, all of which proceed to development larger 12 months after year. Other prospects and industries have additionally shown an interest in this dimension, and it would be no surprise in any respect to see more of these pumps built within the near future for similar purposes.”
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