PUMPS AND PIPELINES
The MDR500 fits on a frame 1400 – the largest
frame in the MD series to benefit from an
innovative pump maintenance slide base,
Metso’s Director EMEA, Pumps business area,
Steve Sedgwick told IM at the event.
In terms of routine inspection or repair, this
design allows the complete bearing frame and
rotating element to be removed as a unit; thus,
impeller, complete gland seal component and
back liner renewal can be carried out rapidly and
safely. The inlet and discharge piping can remain
in place, which aids health and safety for
operations and maintenance teams.
The MD series has been designed specifically
for mill discharge, very abrasive applications and
cyclone feed duties, offering sustained efficiency
and performance, on top of operational reliability
and durability, according to Metso.
The company said it uses only high-
performance materials for its MD pumps that
come with excellent resistance to abrasion and
erosion. Special emphasis has also been placed
on components able to withstand exceptional
wear from coarse heavy solids due to the modern
hydraulic design.
While the MDR500 on the Metso stand came
with a rubber lining, the company also provides
an alternative metal lining for coarse feeds
(MDM500).
The MDR500, which as the name implies
comes with a 500 mm inlet, has a large diameter,
slow-running impeller, on top of double
adjustment feature ensuring both suction side
and gland side impeller clearances can be set
perfectly from new, and maintained throughout
the wear life of the components, Metso said.
This specimen on show at Bauma was, by far,
not the largest model available, with the
company explaining it can meet most flow and
head requirements for the intended mining
applications.
Last year, the company introduced a new
pump test rig at its Sala facility, in Sweden,
equipped with a 2 MW motor that could
accommodate the company’s largest mill
discharge pump – the MDM650 – and larger.
Some of the pumps tested on this new rig have
already been dispatched to a mining customer in
South America.
Sedgwick said Metso had sold pumps to
mining companies in several countries in recent
years – for base metal and other operations –
and was continuing to register good global
demand from those focused on gold, iron ore and
copper.
He said Metso had also recently made a
delivery to a company in the CIS where the pump
was being used in conjunction with high pressure
grinding rollers in a hard-rock comminution circuit.
Metso doesn’t just supply the pumps that go
into these heavy-duty applications. It also helps
integrate the equipment into
the operations they were built
for by supplying rubber pipes,
valves and other solutions.
A case in point is Boliden’s
Aitik mine, in Sweden, where
an expansion project to take
the operation from 36 Mt/y
throughput to 45 Mt/y has
been going on for the past few
years.
This 25% increase in
production – that came with a
subsequent rise in output of copper concentrate
– required every part of the Aitik plant to be
optimised, Metso said.
Initial investigation showed if concentrate
volumes were to step up with this expansion, the
mine would run into capacity limitations with the
existing tailings from the plant.
The miner needed a proven solution fast in
order to achieve its production goals. It also
required one that could cope with environments
where temperatures could vary from -40°C to
30°C.
This is where Metso suggested a solution
consisting of heavy-duty slurry pumps and
rubber-lined steel pipes designed for rugged
applications.
The company supplied 16 km of natural
rubber-lined pipes, ranging in size from DN200 to
DN600, with rubber compensators and branch
pipes, and the heavy-duty pumps. The pipes
offer five times longer wear life compared with a
typical polyethylene pipe, according to the
company, and were supplied alongside rubber
hoses, and rubber bends equipped with thick
long-wear rubber and an “ultra-smooth surface”
for low flow resistance to increase the tailing
capacity (source: customer story on metso.com).
Differentiated dewatering
At a different location at Bauma, Xylem was
presenting new and improved products under its
portfolio of tough dewatering and flood
protection pumps for the European market.
The exhibition booth highlight was the debut
of its latest Godwin smart dewatering pump, the
Godwin CD150S. Replacing the CD150M, which
has been around for over 30 years, this new
pump is able to deliver more than 15% improved
fuel economy, 40% less service time and 20%
greater uptime compared with the CD150M,
according to the company.
IM caught up with Kevin Snow, Global Product
Manager for Xylem’s Godwin brand, at the event
to hear more about the new product and the
company’s wider R&D effort for mine dewatering.
“It’s a manifestation of an investment that
started four or five years ago,” Snow said of the
CD150S, the second “smart” pump the company
The MDR500 fits on a frame 1400 – the largest
frame in the MD series to benefit from an
innovative pump maintenance slide base
has launched.
“Around this time, we recognised that the
Godwin model – the self-priming pump that used
the Venturi principle and came out about 40
years ago – had been copied by everyone. The
dewatering pumps business had become a ‘me-
too’, or ‘price’ game, as opposed to a ‘value’
game.
“We picked up on this and began investing in
differentiated value and innovation,” he said.
Backed by its Voice of the Customer initiative,
which identified the major issues its customers
were facing alongside the improvements they
required, the company outlined its immediate
R&D focus areas.
“This Godwin CD150S is a result of that entire
gathering of information and redesign,” he said.
The CD150S has already clocked up thousands
of hours of development time, according to
Snow, with several tests already taking place in
mines.
Interchangeable, application-specific impellers
were one of the key selling points Snow
identified.
“You can take this CD150S pump, which can
handle large, non-compressive solids up to 3 in
(76.2 mm) in size, and a user can switch out the
impeller to a non-clog (NC) impeller,” he said.
This NC impeller is based on Xylem’s Flygt N-
Technology and enables the CD150S to tackle
stringy, modern wastewater applications with the
same pump.
The improved hydraulic design – which
features a non-return valve with a “much more
gentle turn” than the CD150M, Snow said –
reduces vibration, and maximises efficiency and
fuel economy, according to the company.
An additional sight glass to assess the volume
and quality of lubricant, plus maintenance
improvements on the compressor belt also
provided an added benefit for the customer.
On the latter, Snow said: “Before, when a
compressor belt failed or needed replacing, it
used to take two people four hours to disconnect
everything, put the compressor belt back in and
JUNE 2019 | International Mining 69