In January 2020 GIW Industries, Inc.a US subsidiary of the KSB Group, manufactures wear-resistant slurry pumps for dredging applications, commissioned its largest ever heavy duty centrifugal slurry pump for operation in Canada’s oil sands, namely the TBC (Tie Bolt Construction)-92. Named after its 92-inch (2337mm) impeller, the TBC -92 is the largest and heaviest slurry pump available in the oil sands industry and emerges as the latest in a line of powerful high-pressure pumps offered by GIW.
The processes require extensive use of slurry and water transportation pumps capable of handling vast quantities of liquids at high pressures and high temperatures. Drawing on its many years of designing slurry pumps for mining, GIW has custom-engineered slurry pumps that combine advanced materials, hydraulics and patented mechanical designs, the latest of which is the TBC-92.
The abrasive nature of the slurry is what separates a slurry pump apart from other pumps used in the industry. Wear and erosion are facts of life, and GIW has decades of experience in the design of slurry pumps and the development of materials to help extend the service life of these critical components to match the planned maintenance cycles in the plant.
The construction style of GIW’s TBC pump range feature large, ribbed plates held together with tie bolts for very high pressure service and maximum wear performance. First developed for dredge service, then later introduced into the oil sands in the 1990’s, the TBC pump series has grown into a fully developed range of pumps serving the oil sands, phosphate, dredging and hard rock mining industries for tailings and hydrotransport applications. The pumps are often grouped together in booster stations to build pressure as high as 750 psi (5171 kPa) to account for the pipe losses encountered over such long distances.
Capable of delivering pressure up to 37bar and flows in excess of 18,200m³/h and temperatures up to 120⁰C, the TBC range is a horizontal, end suction centrifugal pump that gives maximum resistance to wear. Simple to maintain, the pump’s tie-bolt design transfers stress loads away from the wear resistant white iron casing to the non-bearing side plates without the use of heavy and unwieldy double-wall construction.
In total, the TBC-92 weighs about 209,000lbs (95,000kg) – roughly equivalent to a fully-loaded Airbus A321 aeroplane. The casing alone weighs 34,000lbs (15,500kg). Key features of the pump include a slurry diverter that dramatically increases suction liner life by reducing particle recirculation between the impeller and the liner. The large diameter impeller allows the pump to run at slower speeds so that wear life is enhanced. The lower speed also gives the pump the ability to operate over a wider range of flows in order to accommodate fluctuating flow conditions.
The commissioning of the TBC-92 marks an important milestone for GIW, which now has pumps in service at all operating Canadian oil sands plants for hydrotransportapplications. The TBC-92 has been designed to tackle heavy-duty slurry transport while providing a low total cost of ownership.
That GIW has established itself as a significant force in pumping solutions for the oil sands industry is far from surprising given that it has been developing pumping technologies and wear resistant materials in the global mining industry since the 1940’s.
