What Pumps Do You Need For A Demanding Industry?
Water transfer systems, whether for dewatering needs or wet processing in the mineral extraction, recycling, or heavy industries presents some major demands. The machinery you need has to be powerful enough to transfer the volume of water, sometimes over large distances or heights. Economical running costs to maximise returns and sustainability, and reliable to keep the site safe and operational at all times. Throw some sand or mineral solids into the mix and you have an abrasive slurry that’s perfect for destroying your shiny new general purpose clear water pump. Wear and tear on the moving parts can soon degrade the pump’s performance, increasing running costs and, over time, the risk of pump failure.
Abrasive fluids, moving at speed and pressure need machinery manufacturing from extra hard metal alloys, or tough rubber-lined pump valves and other moving parts.
Borehole Water Pumping Requirements
Borehole pumps are used to source clean water from the ground, often for the purpose of wash-plant feeds.
Borehole pumps are designed to fit inside narrow wells and are usually sealed to allow them to be submersed in the fluid they are pumping. The water is drawn in directly from the base and pumped vertically up from the top of the pump under high pressure. A multistage vertical borehole pump is used where additional head pressure is required, that would be unattainable with a similar sized single-stage pump.
Centrifugal Slurry Pump
Advantages of centrifugal pumps include simplicity of design, consistent flow, and few moving parts. All these add up to improved efficiency and lower operational costs. Furthermore, centrifugal pumps are ideal for when high flow volumes are needed.
For these reasons, this type of pump is often used in slurry transfer operations. In the mining and quarry industry, slurry is typically water mixed with sand, mud or aggregate grit so in addition to being viscous, it is also highly abrasive. Centrifugal slurry pumps are made to withstand greater wear and also to allow the smooth passage of sludge.
Dirty Water Pumps
If you have water that has only a low level of solids, you may be able to use dirty water pumps rather than slurry pumps. Dirty water pumps are generally less expensive than slurry pumps, but care must be taken to ensure that stones, sand etc do not contaminate the water.
Submersible Pumps
Submersible pumps have many uses in quarries and industrial processes where the pump needs to be placed directly in the water or fluid that it is pumping. Like Borehole pumps, the motor is sealed to prevent any leakage into the electrical parts. Some of these pumps have high-volume pumping capacity and are ideal for dewatering or removing water from large sumps in mines and quarries.
Peristaltic Water Pump
The peristaltic pump, also known as a rotary pump, hose or pipe pump has a circular roller action that squeezes the fluid through the looped pipework. It has the advantage that the actual pump parts do not come into contact with the fluid being moved, making it suitable for wide variety of liquids and reducing cleaning/maintenance time. This type of pump can be found in many sizes, Atlantic supply large peristaltic pumps for high volume fluid transfers.
Important Factors To Consider
When you are considering the important machinery for your quarry site, you should think about more than just getting the most powerful or the cheapest equipment. Over-specified machinery wastes resources and ongoing energy costs, whilst inferior materials and workmanship can work out very costly in downtime and replacement.
Correctly specified machinery will save you operational headache, reduce downtime and increase profitability and return on investment. Ensuring that the supplier can provide sound advice and after-sales service is also an important consideration.
When it comes to your quarry, you need the best machinery. At Atlantic Pumps, we understand how vital it is to have efficient, reliable machinery and support for your operations.
Get in touch to discuss your requirements and find out more about why we value sustainability in everything we do. Our machinery is designed to reduce energy usage, and this has a success rate of 20% energy reduction on average sites.
