What's the Best Slurry Pump?

• What's in the slurry? The solid? The liquid?
• What is the particle size?
• What is the percentage of particles to liquid?
• What is the temperature?
• What is the line size?
• What is the delivery pressure?
• Please describe the reservoir also.

Discflo uses a different type of pump technology, based on Nikola Tesla's boundary layer turbine. The smooth discs supposedly hold up better pumping harsh abrasives, etc.

http://www.discflo.com/

That pump is an Italian breed I believe? I have worked with some of the German and USA type. I find the German pumps better, but find the replacement parts are a long lead time. I would go back to the basics, what, wear, when and who. I feel a redesign is in order.

Do not know exactly what you are trying to pump but here are some suggestions:

• Warman! Used extensively for all kinds of slurries, mining slurries etc.
• If you want to go one step up from that with process slurries look at Lawrence Pumps
• Peristaltic pumps are much underestimated for pumping of slurries. Bredel is a well know manufacturer

Hi Archie, great to hear from someone else in the mining community.

I suggest that you talk to your representative and ask them to help. They might even be aware of the problem and have maybe even written reports, given hours of site consultancy and even delivered equipment to improve the situation. Possibly one reason that the pumps are failing is that your maintenance staff never actually replace the worn parts, they just bodge them up with ceramic repair paste every few days. Not sure if this is actually the fault of the OEM. Just a thought.

Sometimes the accelerated wear condition arises when pumping very high heads at off BEP conditions (very low flows) causing massive suction recirculation. One practical solution would be to split the head on the combined tails pumps between two units which would allow them to share the load and also permit the use of elastomer liners even at such high heads. Run the first stage off a VVVF and place the second stage up the hill towards the TSF.

For the SAG mill discharge pump I suggest that you go back through the maintenance records and see if the wear was ever acceptable. Then figure out what has changed. Has the ore become harder (check the jaw crusher wear for a benchmark) or has the recirculating load through the mill increased. Interestingly I note that you have slowed the mill down (potentially below the critical speed) but I am sure that you discussed this with Morgenshammer first. If you are operated sub critical does this affect the grind at all? If so- so your recirc load increases and hence pumps have to work harder...

It is foolish, lazy engineering to imply that one brand is superior to another (you know who you are!) 99% of the time it is the application that is the problem not the product. Pumps are sized based on design data that may be horrendously wrong and this can have unforseen, sometimes devastating consequences. It's acceptable to have preferred equipment and non-preferred equipment but this should be based on sound judgement and experience on a level playing field, not biased jingoism from ill educated, conservative crackpots with one foot in the 1970's and one foot in the grave (Hi Dick!)