Pumps for Mining Applications
ABELs pumps for mining applications run slowly when conveying abrasive tailings or viscous backfill paste. No matter whether it’s tailings transfer, backfilling or mine dewatering – ABEL has a suitable mining pump. Especially piston diaphragm pumps type HM are used in this field. These meet the requirements of challenging tasks in open pit and underground mines throughout the world.
Piston diaphragm pumps have a respectable service life due to the diaphragm, which separates drive and medium. Furthermore, the equipment has been improved over the years. For mining applications with particularly aggressive media, ABEL provides wetted parts made of stainless steel or duplex stainless steel – such as acidic ore sludge.
ABEL recommends HMT and HMQ pumps for mine dewatering. Their high pumping capacity and sturdy, high pressure design allows drainage of mine water in only one stage to the surface.
Mine backfilling requires extremely robust high-performance pumps – most of the time with high pumping capacity at high pressures. ABEL HMQ and SH are used for this purpose even if conditions are extreme. They provide constant flow rates and can transfer pasty media, even when mixed up with cement.
Tailings transfer means, pumping tailings to a pond – this can be characterized by long distances with high pressure, high flow rates or high solids concentration. We have many tailing pumps in the field that reliably do this job day after day. Since ABEL can handle tailings with a solids content of up to 75%, additional water for sealing is not necessary. Just another reason in favor of ABEL.
Centrifugal Pump vs. ABEL Piston Diaphragm Pump
There are many advantages in favor of a piston diaphragm pump. It is not without reason that oscillating pumps have been preferred for some years now, especially in modern, efficiently operated mines. Compared to centrifugal pumps, ABELs mining pumps have the following advantages:
- pump higher solids concentration
- greater overall efficiency
- smooth operation and low speed causes less wear
- higher availability: long life cycle and process reliability
- constant flow regardless of pressure and viscosity
- no water for sealing
Which Media are pumped with Piston Diaphragm Pumps in Mining?
Pasty media possibly containing cement – e.g. for mine backfilling
Abrasive and mineral slurries / thickened tailings from various mining processes
Mine water
Advantages of ABEL Pumps
Pump for Mine Tailings
Our Customer is headquartered in Latin America. Its core activities are copper extraction, processing and sales. The company generates an annual production volume of about 100,000 tons of fine copper.
Reliable and safe transfer of thickened copper tailings
The production process requires a technology capable of pumping thickened tailings with the highest solid content possible without risking stoppages of the transport line. Knowing that the company would incur unacceptably high costs if it had to interrupt metal production due to unexpected downtime of the pumping equipment, piston-diaphragm pump technology emerged as the best option for tackling this demanding task. Given the specific production requirements of the mining site, the pumps were planned for continuously operation, 24 hours a day, 365 days per year.
The requirements of the application, the characteristics of the tailings, the importance of the pumping equipment availability and the need for pumps with the highest overall efficiency resulted in the selection of the ABEL piston diaphragm technology as it fully satisfied all requirements. Pumping the thickened tailings is a top priority for the production process. As a solution, ABEL proposed to install one single piston-diaphragm pump of the HMQ series, which is best suited for the specific operational requirements.
Solution: HMQ Piston Diaphragm Pump
The ABEL HMQ can reach a discharge pressure of 75 bar, a flow rate of 230 m³/h with solids content of 62%, which means that the client can count on an hourly thickened tailings displacement of 375 metric tons in total. These pumping parameters are met with a power consumption of less than 558 kW, which complies with efficiency and availability parameters required by our customer. Furthermore, the application also requires the equipment to adapt its pumping flow rate to varying production circumstances. This is rendered possible thanks to the use of a VFD which ensures an efficiency of 92% independent of the actual flow rate, material solid content or mixture viscosity. The ABEL pumps have been installed and commissioned in 2016 and they have been operated since then.
