00e5 The heat is off

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15:24

Pagina 1

The heat is off

Savings in plant construction and low

heat loss enhance the value of a GEHO
Heat-Barrier pump.

Extended envelope
Gold ore pressure oxidation plants have
exclusively used the GEHO piston
diaphragm pump for feeding autoclaves
at elevated temperature.
Eight GEHO model ZPM 900 HeatBarrier pumps sustain the nickel and
cobalt production at the Murrin Murrin
and Bulong refineries in Australia. These
pumps are heavier duty in that they feed
abrasive laterite nickel slurry to acidleach autoclaves, with a larger flow rate
against higher pressure and heated to
200C.

Dead-headed
The pump valves are mounted at some
distance from the diaphragm housing.

The slurry oscillating in the dead-headed

housing and the downstream "dropleg"
pipe are cooled to dissipate the heat
convected by the slurry. As a result, the
temperature at the diaphragm is well
below the design value.

Horizontal orientation
The increase in capacity and temperature has led to the development of a
slide-mounted pump with horizontal
dropleg orientation. In comparison to
a vertical orientation, these pumps
feature:
Factory mounted bases for easy and
expedient installation.
Compact construction, which saves
footprint space.
Installation at grade level, which limits
the overall height of the feed tanks.
A free-floating separator, which reduces the heat loss and increases
the diaphragm operating temperature
margin.

Excellent
Engineering
Solutions

The GEHO horizontal dropleg pump is slide-mounted to assure unrestricted thermal

expansion of the dropleg pipes.

00e5 The heat is off

1-8-03

15:24

Pagina 2

Murrin Murrin uses the (Sherritt International) pressure acid leach (PAL) technology to recover nickel and cobalt. Slurried, crushed ore is pressure leached with sulphuric acid, and metals recovered by further leaching. The slurrying mill discharges into a classification screen
and undersize is pumped by the GEHO ZPM 900 pumps to the autoclave feed slurry storage
tanks.

Maintenance-free slides and restraints,

which accomplish unrestricted and
trouble free expansion of the dropleg
pipes.
Paired
valve housings, which are
readily accessible for ease of valve
maintenance.
Along the way, GEHO PUMPS quantified the flow and acceleration induced
pressure disturbances acting upon the
pump power-end, the water-end and the
dropleg pipes. These components, in
particular, the internal pressure relief
system, are sized accordingly which has
enhanced the reliability and availability
of these pumps.

PUMPS. The scope of work for both

contracts was jointly developed with the
respective mine management, with the
incorporation of key performance indicators ensuring that all parties work
towards the goal of reducing total pumping costs.

Total cost of pumping

Excellent
Engineering
Solutions

Weir Services Australia is providing the

Murrin Murrin and Bulong plants with
comprehensive pump maintenance services, as well as spare parts, inventory
management and ongoing component
development in association with GEHO

Weir Netherlands b.v.

P.O. Box 249, NL-5900 AE Venlo
Phone: +31(0)77-3895200
Fax: +31(0)77-3824844
Email: weir@weir.nl, Website: www.weir.nl
Copyright Weir Netherlands b.v.