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 difficult course of and requires the biggest slurry pump in the oil sands business.
When it comes to pumping slurry, there can be very few purposes which are more challenging than the hydro-transport of skilled quality slurries in oil sands production. Not only do the pumps should cope with the extremely 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 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 largest and heaviest slurry pump available within the oil sands industry and the latest in a line of powerful high-pressure pumps provided by GIW.
Slurry transportation Slurry transport covers a considerable range of business sectors, ranging 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 various sizes and viscosities. In mining, dredging and oil sands production, the biggest problem is to accommodate excessive density slurry and highly abrasive grits.
It is crucial that the slurry passes through 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 position 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 mixed with heat water to form a dense slurry that can be transported within 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 often transported through completely different pumps to settling ponds.
The processes require intensive use of slurry and water transportation pumps capable of dealing with huge quantities of liquids at excessive pressures and high temp- eratures. Drawing on its long expertise of designing slurry pumps for mining, GIW has custom-engineered slurry pumps that combine advanced supplies, hydraulics and patented mechanical designs, the most recent of which is the TBC-92.
Meeting challenges Mollie Timmerman, GIW enterprise growth supervisor, explains extra: “Our consumer wanted a higher capacity pump which was capable of 10,000–11,000 m3 per hour of output at practically 40 m of developed head and a most working stress of 4000 kPa. The pump additionally needed to have the flexibility to move rocks of approximately 130 mm in diameter with a total passage size requirement of 10 in (or 254 mm) and handle slurry densities in excess of 1.5 SG.
In addition, the client was targeting a upkeep interval (operational time between deliberate maintenance) of around 3,000 hours. They had expressed an curiosity in maximising the maintenance intervals and primarily based on initial wear indications, they are presently hoping to achieve around 6,000 hours between pump overhauls (i.e. 6–8 months).”
The quick 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 mix of water, bitumen, sand, and enormous rocks. Screens are in place to keep these rocks to a manageable measurement for the process, however the high dimension can still typically attain as a lot as 130 mm in diameter or bigger.
The abrasive nature of the slurry is what separates a slurry pump from different pumps used in the trade. Wear and erosion are details of life, and GIW has decades of experience in the design of slurry pumps and the event of supplies to help extend the service life of these critical 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 popular measurement in mill duties for almost 10 years through- out Central and South America,” explains Mollie Timmerman. ”However, the customer’s utility required a pump with larger strain capabilities and the capability of dealing with larger rocks so we responded with the event of the TBC-92 which provided the best resolution for maximised production.”
The TBC sequence The development style of GIW’s TBC pump range features large, ribbed plates held together with tie bolts for very high-pressure service and maximum 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 fully developed range of pumps serving the oil sands, phosphate, dredging and onerous rock mining industries for tailings and hydrotransport applications.
The pumps are sometimes grouped together in booster stations to build pressure as high as 750 psi (5171 kPa) to account for the pipe losses encountered over such lengthy distances. The sturdy building of the TBC pump is nicely suited to do the job, whereas ensuring maximum availability of the tools underneath heavily abrasive wear.
Capable of delivering strain up to 37 bar and flows of more than 18,200m³/h and temperatures up to 120o C, the TBC vary is a horizontal, finish suction centrifugal pump that offers most resistance to wear. Simple to take care of, the pump’s tie-bolt design transfers stress masses away from the damage resistant white iron casing to the non- bearing side plates with out the usage of heavy and unwieldy double-wall development.
The TBC-92 combines one of the best parts of earlier TBC fashions, together with the TBC-84 oil sands tailing pump, also called 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 complete, 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 include a slurry diverter that dramatically will increase suction liner life by lowering 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 decrease velocity also gives the pump the power to operate over a wider range of flows so as 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 provide safer lifting. Customers obtain pump-specific lifting gadgets to facilitate the protected elimination and installation of wear 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 essential milestone for GIW, which now has pumps in service at all operating Canadian oil sands vegetation for hydrotransport purposes. เครื่องมือใช้วัดความดัน -92 has been designed to deal with heavy-duty slurry transport while offering a low whole cost of ownership. Minimal labour and maintenance time assist to maximise production 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 that is the heaviest TBC pump we have ever designed, particular attention was given to maintainability, as nicely as materials choice and development of the pressure-containing parts.”
That GIW has established itself as a significant drive in pumping options for the oil sands trade is far from surprising given that it has been creating pumping technologies and wear resistant materials within the international mining industry because the Nineteen Forties.
These pumps have had a considerable impression on the best way that excavated sand, rock and bitumen are transported to the upgrader plant. By adding water to the excavated materials it turns into 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 is transported, plus there is the extra advantage of removing the use of trucks.
GIW has estimated that the worth of shifting oil sand in this method can reduce prices by US$2 a barrel, and it is much more environmentally friendly. These pumps also play a significant role in transporting the coarse tailings to the tailings ponds. GIW provides pumps used in the extraction process 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 fundamental to the development of those merchandise. GIW has been acquiring slurry samples from prospects over a few years for testing hydraulics and materials both for pumps and pipelines. Research & Development facilities include a number of slurry check 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 corporations are experiencing problems the GIW R&D personnel can see the place the issue lies and provide recommendation for remedial action. Experience does indicate that in many cases the issue lies not with the pump nevertheless, but within the interaction between the pipeline and the pump.
Feedback from customers about appli- cations helps within the improvement of new tools and pump designs. By bringing to- gether clients and teachers from everywhere in the world to share their expertise and analysis with in-house experts, the large investment in research, improvement and manufacturing has advanced the design of all of the GIW pump products,materials 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,” 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 services for larger and higher manufacturing and demanding the identical of the equipment that retains their production moving. While these bigger pumps demand extra energy, in addition they permit for larger manufacturing with less downtime required for maintenance. Overall, the effectivity improves when in comparison with the same output from a bigger amount of smaller pumps. “
In conclusion, he says: “Larger pumps go hand-in-hand with bigger facilities, bigger pipelines, and increased manufacturing, all of which proceed to pattern larger 12 months after 12 months. Other customers and industries have also shown an interest on this measurement, and it would be no surprise at all to see extra of those pumps built within the close to future for related purposes.”
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