The technical advancement of Weir Minerals’ GEHO® positive displacement pumps has ensured they play a key position in reducing mines’ environmental footprint.
The GEHO® pump range is well-known in varied pumping functions together with tailings, backfill, ore transportation and dewatering. Weir Minerals Global Product Manager for GEHO® constructive displacement (PD) pumps, Erik Vlot, highlights the pumps’ ability to pump extremely viscous slurry, allowing mines to preserve water. The energy effectivity of pipeline transportation also helps cut vitality costs and reduces mines’ carbon footprint.
“The foundation of GEHO pumps’ success is our ongoing attention to technical innovation and enchancment,” says Vlot. “This additionally allowed us to be pioneers in the pumping of very acidic materials at high temperatures, corresponding to nickel slurry at more than 200°C at a mine in Madagascar.”
With their excessive capability, GEHO® pumps transport bauxite or iron ore over tons of of kilometres, providing one of the most value effective and sustainable transfer methods out there to the mining industry. These pumps have also played an integral role in the success of a Weir Minerals paste solution at Finland’s largest open pit mine. Yara’s Siilinjärvi mine makes use of GEHO® pumps to maneuver tailings from the plant, reaching the necessary beach slope on its tailings facility to satisfy its life-of-mine technique.
Backfilling is an important methodology for mining to achieve safety and environmental goals, and GEHO® pumps have been enabling this work. In a North American platinum operation, the tools pumps over a thousand litres a minute of this viscous backfill material – measuring 70% solids by weight – again into the mine’s worked out areas.
In the context of deep mines, GEHO® pumps provide an efficient and reliable means of dewatering from nice depths, as an alternative of using multiple smaller pumps to transfer water to surface. The highly effective GEHO® pump vary can do that by pumping from the underside of a mine to the surface in just one raise – even over kilometres.
“Apart from the cost effectiveness of this answer, an important benefit is that it reduces the chance of 1 pump in a pumping chain failing, and disrupting the complete dewatering function,” he says. “It additionally reduces the price and maintenance requirements of getting multiple pumping stations at different ranges throughout the mine.”
The popularity of GEHO® pumps has additionally been constructed on their reliability, he explains. This has resulted from Weir Minerals’ ongoing analysis and improvement into its pumps’ wear elements. This process is predicated on an in-depth understanding of the entire pumping system in which the pump operates.
เกจวัดแรงดันไนโตรเจนราคา Taking into account how our pumps interact with these techniques, we concentrate on key elements of the pumps such because the diaphragm and propelling liquid system,” he says. The propelling liquid supplies the barrier between the piston and the diaphragm ensuring that all the shifting elements transfer in oil and never slurry.
He emphasises the significance of diaphragm dynamics and the want to management the amount of propelling liquid within the chamber. This is finished through the PLC control, to make certain that the diaphragm runs in the proper place.
“Rubber is sweet at bending, but when it stretches it can tear,” he says. “Our aim is to extend the replacement intervals between diaphragm replacements, serving to mines to cut back both their downtime and their whole cost of possession.”
The monitoring of GEHO® pumps’ operation is carried out through digital know-how in order that operators can stay abreast – in real time – of the pump’s efficiency and condition. Weir Minerals’ digital layer for these pumps is being rolled out to customers, informing the upkeep schedules and enhancing pump availability.
Vlot notes that Weir Minerals continues to innovate with the GEHO® pump range, and is even exploring possibilities for transferring coarse ore to the floor from deep in a mine – as a more economical option to traditional hoisting methods.
“Vital to all our GEHO pump options is the Weir Minerals’ world service network, ensuring that wherever our pumps are operating there will be an skilled native service crew to support them,” he concludes.
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