High pressure pumps for mining

ANDRITZ Ritz is breaking new ground in the field of mine dewatering, drawing on 140 years of experience with the manufacturing of pumps in the waterworks and mining fields.

Diverse mine operators all around the globe trust in the submersible motor pumps made by ANDRITZ Ritz, which are installed into well shafts and operate there in a fully maintenance-free manner. Their unique long service lifetime and performance profiles are made possible by ANDRITZ Ritz’s patented double-suction heavy duty mining (HDM) design.

However, in recent years, many mine operators and pump experts have increasingly approached ANDRITZ with requests for conventional dry-mounted high-pressure pumps.

In order to arrive at a solution, engineers and development experts at ANDRITZ, mine operators and their pump advisors participated in a workshop in 2014. Given that the installation of submersible motor pumps might not be possible in convoluted mines, due to the spatial conditions, there was an incentive to rethink and break new ground in order to adapt the robust and proven performance characteristics of the double-suction HDM pumps to a dry-mounted pump solution.

Starting point

The aforementioned double-suction HDM technology was used as the development’s starting point, as it had already distinguished itself due to its high service lifetime and general durability in the past decades. This is due to the design that is entirely free of any axial thrust effects, thereby reducing wear and stress on components to a minimum, which is, in turn, reflected by the significantly increased service lifetime and lower operating costs, for example with regard to the required maintenance intervals.

With conventional HDM technology for submersible motor pumps, the pump unit is directly suspended into the body of water that is supposed to be pumped out. However, the objective of this particular pump construction was to develop a solution that could be dry-mounted while still offering the same pump characteristics, such as the long service life and lack of axial thrust effects.

This new development was to be used in all those mining areas where the proven HDM technology is considered unusable. The engineers therefore faced the challenge of adapting this proven “wet technology” to a dry working environment.

Due to the fact that a new high-pressure pump was just being developed for the water market in parallel to this new technological ‘quantum leap’, it was possible to equip the dry pump with hydraulic systems of the newest generation. These allow for efficiency rates of up to 85 per cent, in accordance with the latest state-of-the-art technology.

Significant benefits

ANDRITZ Ritz is also able to offer additional benefits and advantages in the form of some special features for the new pump, which provide the operators with significant operating benefits and, thereby also reducing costs.

This includes bearings for the newly-developed pump generation. Until now, the pumps had to be extensively dismantled in order to conduct any maintenance on the bearings – and then, of course, be reassembled again afterwards. A modular replaceable bearing now substitutes the conventionally used slide bearings. This bearing offers the advantage of being replaceable without having to dismantle the entire unit. The new technology saves a considerable amount of time and thereby costs for mine operators.

Likewise, the engineers developed a new method for the simple horizontal installation and removal of pumps due to the prevailing low shaft heights, which can be used without requiring any special tools or auxiliary means and thus were, once again, capable of satisfying the requirements of mine operators and their pump advisors.

By the experts

These are pumps for experts – made by experts. Or ‘taken from practice for use in practice’, as the new high pressure mining pumps precisely satisfy the wishes and requirements expressed by the mine operators with regard to their efficiencies, performance ranges, the part standardisation strategy as well as ease of maintenance thanks to their simplified assembly and disassembly.

And, of course, every unit is inspected and checked at the in-house test bed not only for its general condition, but particularly the bearings and seals, as well as for its efficiency, performance and service life, regardless of its size and the planned area of application. This way, every mine operator receives a unit that is tailored precisely to his needs and requirements.

For Australia-wide sales and service, please contact Pump Power on 03-99337400 or [email protected] or visit their website.

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