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 difficult course of and requires the biggest slurry pump within the oil sands business.
When it involves pumping slurry, there may be very few applications which are more challenging than the hydro-transport of industrial quality slurries in oil sands manufacturing. Not only do the pumps should contend with the highly aggressive nature of the fluid being pumped, they’re also 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, specifically 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 industry and the newest in a line of powerful high-pressure pumps offered by GIW.
Slurry transportation Slurry transport covers a substantial range of business sectors, ranging from food and beverage to mining. What is frequent to all, is that the pumps used should be ready to transport liquids containing particles and solids of varying sizes and viscosities. In mining, dredging and oil sands manufacturing, the biggest problem is to accommodate high density slurry and highly abrasive grits.
It is crucial that the slurry passes via the pump with the minimum quantity of wear and tear to the pump casing, impeller, shaft and sealing mechanism. Furthermore, the pump have to be capable of delivering excessive flows and in a position to face up to harsh working environments.
Alberta in Canada has in depth oil reserves and these are in the type 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 combined with warm water to kind a dense slurry that can be transported in the pipeline in the direction of extraction, the place 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 intensive use of slurry and water transportation pumps capable of handling vast portions of liquids at high pressures and high temp- eratures. Drawing on its long experience of designing slurry pumps for mining, GIW has custom-engineered slurry pumps that combine superior supplies, 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 wanted a better capability pump which was able to 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 also wanted to have the power to move rocks of roughly 130 mm in diameter with a complete passage measurement requirement of 10 in (or 254 mm) and deal with slurry densities in extra of 1.5 SG.
In addition, the client was targeting a maintenance interval (operational time between deliberate maintenance) of around 3,000 hours. They had expressed an curiosity in maximising the upkeep intervals and based on initial put on indications, they are currently 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 the place 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 huge rocks. Screens are in place to keep these rocks to a manageable measurement for the method, but the top size can nonetheless often 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 trade. Wear and erosion are facts of life, and GIW has a long time of expertise within the design of slurry pumps and the development of supplies to assist extend the service life of those critical components to match the planned maintenance 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 application required a pump with greater stress capabilities and the aptitude of handling bigger rocks so we responded with the development of the TBC-92 which offered one of the best resolution for maximised production.”
The TBC sequence The development style of GIW’s TBC pump range features giant, ribbed plates held together 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 Nineties, the TBC pump collection has grown into a fully developed vary of pumps serving the oil sands, phosphate, dredging and hard rock mining industries for tailings and hydrotransport applications.
The pumps are sometimes grouped collectively in booster stations to construct stress 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 well suited to do the job, whereas ensuring maximum availability of the tools beneath heavily abrasive wear.
Capable of delivering stress as much as 37 bar and flows of more than 18,200m³/h and temperatures up to 120o C, the TBC range is a horizontal, finish suction centrifugal pump that provides 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 without using heavy and unwieldy double-wall building.
The TBC-92 combines the best elements of earlier TBC models, together with the TBC-84 oil sands tailing pump, also referred to as the Super Pump. The pump also incorporates features from GIW’s MDX product line, which is utilized in heavy-duty mining circuits throughout the world of exhausting rock mining.
In complete, 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 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 in order to accommodate fluctuating move situations.
To make maintenance easier, the pump is fitted with a special two-piece suction plate design which helps to reduce tool time and supply safer lifting. Customers receive pump-specific lifting units to facilitate the protected removal and installation of wear comp- onents. The pump additionally features a longlasting suction liner that could be adjusted without needing to close 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 working Canadian oil sands crops for hydrotransport purposes. The TBC-92 has been designed to tackle heavy-duty slurry transport whereas providing a low total value of possession. Minimal labour and maintenance time assist to maximise production and revenue.
“This new pump incorporates the teachings realized from operating within the oil sands over a few years, and options our latest hydraulic and wear technologies,” says Mollie Timmerman. “Because this is the heaviest TBC pump we now have ever designed, explicit attention was given to maintainability, in addition to materials selection and construction of the pressure-containing parts.”
That GIW has established itself as a big pressure in pumping options for the oil sands business is much from shocking given that it has been developing pumping applied sciences and put on resistant supplies within the global mining industry since the Nineteen Forties.
These pumps have had a substantial influence on the way that excavated sand, rock and bitumen are transported to the upgrader plant. By adding water to the excavated materials it turns into 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’s transported, plus there’s the additional advantage of removing the use of vehicles.
GIW has estimated that the worth of transferring oil sand in this method can minimize prices by US$2 a barrel, and it is far more environmentally pleasant. These pumps additionally play a significant position in transporting the coarse tailings to the tailings ponds. GIW provides pumps used within the extraction course of and different areas of production (HVF, MDX, LSA).
Understanding slurries Understanding the character of slurries and the way they behave when being pumped has been elementary to the development of these products. GIW has been obtaining slurry samples from customers over a few years for testing hydraulics and supplies both for pumps and pipelines. Research & Development services include multiple slurry take a look at beds on the campus, along with a hydraulics laboratory that’s devoted to pump performance testing.
These actions are central to the company’s pump improvement programmes. If firms are experiencing problems the GIW R&D personnel can see where the issue lies and provide recommendation for remedial motion. Experience does indicate that in many instances the problem lies not with the pump nonetheless, but in the interplay between the pipeline and the pump.
เกจวัดแรงดันแก๊สอาร์กอน from prospects about appli- cations helps within the growth of new tools and pump designs. By bringing to- gether clients and lecturers from all around the world to share their experience and analysis with in-house consultants, the large funding in analysis, improvement and manufacturing has advanced the design of the entire GIW pump merchandise,supplies and wear-resistant parts.
The future “There is a transparent development towards bigger 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 business 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 same of the equipment that keeps their manufacturing shifting. While these bigger pumps demand more energy, in addition they permit for larger manufacturing with less downtime required for upkeep. Overall, the efficiency improves when in comparability with the same output from a bigger quantity of smaller pumps. “
In conclusion, he says: “Larger pumps go hand-in-hand with bigger services, bigger pipelines, and elevated manufacturing, all of which continue to trend larger 12 months after year. Other clients and industries have additionally proven an curiosity in this dimension, and it might be no shock in any respect to see more of those pumps constructed within the close to future for similar functions.”
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