Increasing success in Warman MCR’s range of mill pumps
Resource from: MCR Likes:212
May 29,2014
Rui Gomes, slurry product manager at Weir Minerals Africa.
Many South African plants are still running on Warman AH series slurry pumps, for highly abrasive mill duties.
But an increasing number of plant operators in other parts of Africa are recognising that the latest generation of slurry pumps from Warman MCR®. These are the rubber-lined centrifugal slurry pump from Weir Minerals Africa, offering superior safety and low ownership costs, as well as outstanding performance and reliability.
Rui Gomes, product manager of slurry pumps at Weir Minerals Africa, says, “These pumps are recording major successes globally across a broad range of commodities and in Africa we’re looking at a number of additional new MCR pumps going into operation this year alone. So this technology is clearly generating a substantial amount of market confidence.”
“The MCR pump is specifically designed for mill discharge and cyclone feed duties, incorporating a number of elements that maximise performance in the most aggressive wear applications. Features such as impeller design, liner material, specific speed and bearing assembly allow the pump to easily manage large size particles in dense abrasive slurries and offer the right combination of ruggedness, durability, hydraulics and materials.”
Gomes carries on to say that a big advantage of the new MCR pump is the full front throat bush adjustment that helps with pump efficiency and performance. “It is critical to the efficient operation of the pump, while a quick-change feature allows technicians to replace the wet end of the pump on site.”
One of the most outstanding Warman® MCR case studies was recently documented at a gold mine in south-western Ghana, where a trial installation was initiated to match the performance and wear life between an existing Warman 14/12 AH metal pump and a competitor’s 16/14 primary mill discharge pump. The trial also sought to determine whether a Warman 350MCR could handle the mill’s tonnage.
“The initial milestone of matching or improving on the 2,100tph achieved by the original pumps was quickly achieved,” Gomes says. “The second and more critical goal was to increase the wear life of the pumps, and the target of 1,000 hours of operation without failure was also achieved. The impeller lasted about 1,900 hours before requiring replacement and the R55 rubber liners continued without needing replacement.”
According to Gomes, a number of factors drove the success of this trial.
“Firstly, the pump design was ideally suited to the duty, compared to the pumps previously installed —notably the contribution of the MCR’s rubber lining to the substantial increase in its wear life and the consequent improved mill availability. We were actually astounded at the performance of the rubber liners versus the metal volute originally in place. At the four-month inspection there was still a substantial amount of residual value on the liners and we estimate getting to about 6,000 hours — six times as long as the life of the metal volute.”
In another successful installation in the West African gold industry, a Warman 350MCR was installed to compare against a Warman 16/14 AH metal pump. The mill was operating at flows of about 2,000m³ p/h, to a head of 38m and the Weir Minerals Africa team had to install the MCR to fit in with existing pipework and foundations. The complete wet end was changed out after about 1,400 hours, which more than doubled the life of the metal volute of the 16/14, effectively improving plant availability.
“This particular site was experiencing the fairly common problem of mill balls coming through the system and cracking the metal volutes. However, the R55 rubber liner offered an indirect – but immediate – solution to this operational issue. The customer was also impressed by the quick and easy adjustment capability, the reduced cost of replacement spares and the improved safety levels. This MCR was installed in 2012 and we’re getting similar feedback after 18 months of operation.”
On the back of the other two success stories, a third gold mine in West Africa agreed to trial an MCR pump against its existing 14/12 AH pump and a full technical team from Weir Minerals Africa designed, supplied and fitted a retrofit base. This plant was poised to increase its tonnage to 3 000m³ p/h, to a head of 39 metres to boost output.
“The throatbush ran for about 2,000 hours — far more than what was being achieved with the 14/12 metal throatbush,” says Gomes. “Both the impeller and the liners were intact and are still running at the moment, after about 3,000 hours without replacement.
“The growing interest in our MCR pumps is primarily driven by the improved Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) being achieved. Beyond the gold sector, we’ve also experienced positive spinoffs from greenfields projects in Central Africa, Zambia and the DRC. Most recently, the project house that was managing a recently commissioned greenfields copper plant expansion in the DRC, opted for MCR pumps based on the increasing number of impressive case studies being recorded for this particular pump.”
“In terms of brownfields applications, tonnages and requirements change over the years but the pumps very rarely change. This could be detrimental if the pump becomes too big for the duty, impacting on efficiencies and pump life – or too small – affecting wear life. We’ve now proved that we’re able to retrofit MCR pumps into existing piping and foundations to achieve significant improvements with little or no downtime and we’ve started to focus on a variety of commodity plants where there is pressure to drive costs down and improve processes.”
Gomes concludes that from a manufacturing perspective, Warman MCR has improved availability over the last three years, by manufacturing many of the MCR components locally. This has enhanced Warman MCR’s offering with improved lead times and route to market. It started out with three pump sizes in 2008 and now offer six sizes, with various combinations per size.
(MCR)
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1.The news above mentioned with detailed source are from internet.We are trying our best to assure they are accurate ,timely and safe so as to let bearing users and sellers read more related info.However, it doesn't mean we agree with any point of view referred in above contents and we are not responsible for the authenticity. If you want to publish the news,please note the source and you will be legally responsible for the news published.
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