Eventos Anais de eventos
ENCIT 2016
16th Brazilian Congress of Thermal Sciences and Engineering
BLADELESS IMPELLER DESIGNED TO PUMP ABRASIVE FLUIDS
Submission Author:
Edson Alves Figueira Jr , MG
Co-Authors:
Valério Luiz Borges, Solidônio Carvalho
Presenter: Edson Alves Figueira Jr
doi://10.26678/ABCM.ENCIT2016.CIT2016-0715
Abstract
The mining process, as well as others that need to transport abrasive material in aqueous medium, causes the wear inside centrifugal pumps, mainly in the impellers. This problem is observed in mineral mining and processing industries. Due to its large territory, Brazil has a great diversity of mineral resources. According to the DNPM (Departamento Nacional de Produção Mineral), mineral production covered over 70 materials in 2011, highlighting niobium and tantalum, which represent 97% and 18.4% of the global production, respectively. In Brazil, extraction of Magnetite, chrysotile, bauxite, iron ore and graphite are among the three largest in the world (DNPM, 2012). Therefore, mining companies spend much of their financial resources in the mechanical maintenance of their equipment, especially in conserving and replacing centrifugal pumps, casing and impellers. The aim of this work is to design and develop alternative wear-resistant impellers. Those prototypes will be compatible to commercial pumps to facilitate the replacement. Preliminary tests demonstrated that the bladeless impellers designed so far have 5 times greater durability than the standard ones. However, important parameters such as pressure and flow have not been quantified yet. It is expected that this study will contribute towards the mining industries providing new information and impellers that efficiently replace the standard ones, beyond reducing the maintenance and the costs in the ore pulp pumping.
Keywords
bladeless impeller, pump disc, abrasive fluids
