Weir Minerals Africa : Pumping innovation underpins GEHO success

The technical advancement of Weir Minerals’ GEHO® constructive displacement pumps has ensured they play a key position in decreasing mines’ environmental footprint.
The GEHO® pump range is well known in varied pumping applications including 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 highly viscous slurry, permitting mines to conserve water. The power effectivity of pipeline transportation also helps reduce energy prices and reduces mines’ carbon footprint.
“The foundation of GEHO pumps’ success is our ongoing consideration to technical innovation and enchancment,” says Vlot. “This also allowed us to be pioneers in the pumping of very acidic materials at high temperatures, similar to nickel slurry at greater than 200°C at a mine in Madagascar.”
With their excessive capacity, GEHO® pumps transport bauxite or iron ore over tons of of kilometres, providing one of the most price efficient and sustainable transfer strategies out there to the mining industry. These pumps have also played an integral position in the success of a Weir Minerals paste resolution at Finland’s largest open pit mine. Yara’s Siilinjärvi mine uses GEHO® pumps to move tailings from the plant, reaching the mandatory seaside slope on its tailings facility to fulfill its life-of-mine strategy.
Backfilling is a crucial technique for mining to attain security and environmental objectives, and GEHO® pumps have been enabling this work. In เกจวัดแรงดันถังลม , the gear 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 environment friendly and reliable way of dewatering from great depths, instead of using a quantity of 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 lift – even over kilometres.
“Apart from the fee effectiveness of this answer, an necessary benefit is that it reduces the danger of 1 pump in a pumping chain failing, and disrupting the complete dewatering operate,” he says. “It also reduces the fee and maintenance requirements of having multiple pumping stations at totally different ranges inside the mine.”
The popularity of GEHO® pumps has additionally been constructed on their reliability, he explains. This has resulted from Weir Minerals’ ongoing research and development into its pumps’ put on components. This course of relies on an in-depth understanding of the whole pumping system by which the pump operates.
“Taking under consideration how our pumps interact with these systems, we give attention to key elements of the pumps such because the diaphragm and propelling liquid system,” he says. The propelling liquid offers the barrier between the piston and the diaphragm making certain that each one the shifting elements transfer in oil and not slurry.
He emphasises the significance of diaphragm dynamics and the necessity to control the amount of propelling liquid within the chamber. This is completed through the PLC management, to make certain that the diaphragm runs in the best position.
“Rubber is sweet at bending, but if it stretches it can tear,” he says. “Our aim is to extend the replacement intervals between diaphragm replacements, helping mines to minimize back both their downtime and their whole price of possession.”
The monitoring of GEHO® pumps’ operation is carried out by way of digital know-how so that operators can stay abreast – in real time – of the pump’s performance and situation. Weir Minerals’ digital layer for these pumps is being rolled out to clients, informing the upkeep schedules and enhancing pump availability.
Vlot notes that Weir Minerals continues to innovate with the GEHO® pump vary, and is even exploring prospects for transferring coarse ore to the surface from deep in a mine – as a less expensive choice to conventional hoisting strategies.
“Vital to all our GEHO pump options is the Weir Minerals’ global service network, ensuring that wherever our pumps are operating there shall be an experienced local service crew to support them,” he concludes.
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