MINING PUMPS
Metso’s pump test rig in Sala, Sweden, has
allowed the company to run large pumps, such as
this MDM700, through their paces before
customers receive them
Heading higher
Pumps may not be the biggest ticket item for mining
companies, but given their mineral transportation and
dewatering capabilities, they deserve attention. Dan Gleeson
finds out how vendors are providing more insight into this
equipment to cut downtime and up productivity
Pumps and pipelines have not been immune
to the digitalisation trend seen across the
industry. Whether it is using sensors for
real-time vibration, bearing health or pressure
monitoring, miners have been evaluating the
health of these concentrate, water and slurry
transport solutions for many years.
Weir Minerals thinks the difference between
the Synertrex ® IoT solution and other condition
monitoring tools on the market is the expertise
the company embeds into its own digital platform.
Garry Russell, Director of Minerals Digital at
the company, explains: “Some people might
argue, ‘I could place a bearing monitor on that
pump to provide similar results’, but the
difference with our solution is it couples real-time
bearing condition monitoring with, for example,
what is going on at the wet end of the Warman
pump.
“When you are correlating different vibrations
and different types of signatures on these
pumps, you can actually distil potential failures
and help operators make an informed decision
on whether and when to act on them.”
Russell says it is customers leveraging both
the Synertrex technology – available for
Warman ® pumps and GEHO ® PD (positive
displacement) pumps – and Weir’s own
maintenance and wear expertise that allows
them to get the most out of the platform.
“There are some really good reference sites for
this type of condition monitoring, which isn’t just
about the hardware itself, rather our strong
relationships with the customers and having the
right technical expertise onsite,” he explained to IM.
In many situations, Weir personnel will sit in
on daily maintenance reviews and give feedback
and advice on the data coming back from the
Synertrex platform and how mine operators
should manage their operations based on this
feedback.
When the company launched the Synertrex
platform back in 2018, the ambitions extended
beyond condition monitoring of equipment. It
was billed as allowing operators to monitor
“every aspect of their equipment’s operation,
prevent problems and increase throughput”.
Russell says the company is moving closer to
achieving all these goals with the latest stage of
product development.
“In the initial offering, there were some good
aspects to the technology like connecting wet
ends of Warman pumps with bearing monitoring,
for example. However, we are constantly
developing and launching more advanced
capability to ensure we remain a leader in the
digital arena,” he said.
“In its current lifecycle phase, Synertrex
technology will provide a combination of health
monitoring and advanced wear monitoring.”
He says Weir Minerals has carried out
successful field trials of Synertrex technology,
providing real-time monitoring of wear parts,
which are the most critical consumables in the
entire mining process. The company is currently
closing out trials and will be ready for commercial
deployment in the near future – Russell feels this
type of measurement capability will set the
Synertrex platform apart from the rest of the IoT
market.
“We’re conducting advanced real-time wear
measurement of our pump wear parts so we can
tell customers where, for example, their liner is in
terms of wear,” he said. “This form of real-time
wear sensing by Weir Minerals is unique in our
market.”
Such technology, analysis and thresholds will
be integrated with inventory management
systems that can advise mine sites on the
availability of parts to ensure downtime is kept to
a minimum, he added.
“Synertrex then starts to shift from an
equipment condition monitoring system to one
that asks the right questions and gives the right
answers for the service and operations world,”
he said.
Next for the company is the expansion from
equipment condition monitoring and predictive
maintenance capability to mill circuit system
monitoring and control. Building on its existing
capability to monitor hydrocyclone operating
conditions, Weir Minerals currently has trials in
progress to maintain the ideal operating
condition in hydrocyclone cluster operations, it
said. This will improve mill circuit separation
efficiency, according to Russell, helping miners
optimise operations as well as prevent downtime.
The capabilities within the Synertrex platform
are now delivering and building the big data that
is enabling the other key dimension to Weir
Minerals’ program – data science and
optimisation through a digital twin. “When I talk
about advanced wear, I am currently referring to
the components that are not spinning,” Russell
said. “It is really hard to assess real-time wear on
rotational components in any equipment.
“Using the various types of data, including
maintenance and sensor data, we have applied
data analysis and built an early foundation of a
digital model that will enable operators to
optimise pump throughput in balance with the
wear rate of critical wear parts, like the impeller,
for example. This allows us to start integrating
these notifications into the customer control
system to enable operators to make calculated
throughput and maintenance decisions.”
The company is focused on providing mining
customers with the digital tools they need to
improve operational efficiency through increased
performance and reduced downtime, while also
fitting into daily mine site workflows that may
pool digital resources from multiple vendors,
according to Russell. Therefore, Weir Minerals is
pursuing a fully interoperable philosophy for its
Synertrex platform.
“It’s not necessarily about creating Weir
Minerals’ future mine, it is about how do we fit
into our customers’ mine of the future,” Russell
said. “When you look at it like that,
interoperability has to be inherent to everything
we do.”
JUNE 2020 | International Mining 47