TOPIC:
Mechanical Seal Upgrade Helps Nickel Mine Combat Severe Service Conditions
INSTRUCTOR(S):
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Stephen has over 30 years of mechanical seal design and trouble-shooting experience. Prior to his role in business development, he spent over 33 years as a sales manager for John Crane. He received his Bachelors in (Mechanical) Engineering and continues to reside in Bedford, Nova Scotia.
DETAILS:
One (1) hour presentation, including up to 15 min. Q&A
DESCRIPTION:
We have prepared a case study from a nickel mine presenting our new mechanical seal for tailings pumps that will use our Upstream Pumping Technology to greatly reduce the need for seal flush water and eliminate high pressure flush water pumps. This design will allow a reduction in water usage/seal from the present 33 l/min, 900 psi max to a requirement of less than 2 l/min, 5 psi max. Upstream pumping technology is a special seal face design that allows us to create what amounts to a high pressure, low volume pump that moves a very small amount of liquid (approx. 0.22 l/min) across the seal faces from a low pressure (approx. 5 psi) source into a much higher pressure liquid area (up to 900 psi) without the use of a high pressure seal support system like a plan 53 or 54 system. This technology was invented by John Crane some years ago and is used widely on high pressure centrifugal gas compressors. We have used it on some lower duty ANSI pump type seals and also on some extreme duty offshore injection pump applications, but this presentation will be one of our early success stories in severe duty mining applications. The spiral groove face design itself has been custom designed by our high pressure sealing group out of the UK. One design will cover the entire range from the first low pressure pump in the train to the final pump with a discharge of up to 900 psi. This design helps to reduce water consumption and improve MTBR under extreme pumping conditions.
This presentation offers practical strategies to help you:
Learn from the challenges faced in a nickel mine tailings pump application using slurry seals with face technology to overcome severe processing duties
Achieve mine KPI productivity goals using mechanical seal strategies to improve reliability
Boost seal MTBR
Maximize critical tailings pump equipment lifecycle
Cut maintenance costs
Avoid unplanned downtime
Reduce water and energy waste during mining process