Beaver Process Equipment

We like simple reliability fixes that make a process plant more efficient. This one is so basic but ticks all the boxes ✔️ ✔️ ✔️:

- Longer wear life
- Reduced install time
- Improved safety
- Reduced inventory

This iron ore process plant was previously using two rubber-lined steel spools—a straight spool and a reducer—and a flexible coupling to connect the pump and adjoining pipework.

This set-up amplified pump vibration and caused the pipes to continually misalign and leak.

Slurry would build up underneath and make the plant floor slippery. 💧

The new arrangement uses a single Slurryflex CLX ceramic-lined mining hose reducer. It’s one piece instead of three.

Not only has it doubled the lifespan of the pipework around the pump, but it also:
1. Dampens the vibration
2. Handles abrasive slurry easily with ceramic tiles
3. Makes shutdowns and installation faster and easier

Our Brisbane team custom built the reducer to fit between the different pipe diameters, and then delivered it to site where it easily bolted into place. 🔧

The maintenance team can now comfortably make it to the next shutdown free from leaks and unscheduled repairs.

Predictable maintenance: A pipe dream or achievable? 👀

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Back in 2020, the rubber-lined steel elbows in Mineral Resources’ Mt Marion process plant would start leaking after only four weeks.

It was frustrating for the team to diagnose, maintain and eventually replace🤯.

Lithium is brutal on slurry piping. The sharp, coarse particles will destroy most rubber lined spools within months.

That’s why we recommended they change to ceramic-lined mining hose. In our experience, it’s the best option for long-lasting slurry piping in lithium plants.

The Mt Marion team decided to go one step further and add a wear monitor to the DN150 Slurryflex CLX bend. It allows them to easily check the remaining wear life and predict when they will need to replace it.

Instead of replacing every few weeks, they now get more than 12 months out of the Slurryflex CLX hose 🏅.

12x longer than rubber-lined steel.

Planned and predictable piping maintenance is exactly what they needed.

The Mt Marion team can now set and forget those high wear spots and focus on other maintenance problems.

The mechanical supervisor at First Quantum’s Kansanshi copper-gold mine was chasing the unicorn of slurry piping - “piping with longer life, easier installation, and easier removal."

He was frustrated that the ceramic-lined steel pipes on their high-wear slurry lines were holing out and failing every six to nine months.

The process to remove and replace the DN600 pipes was arduous due to the size and location of the line. Each time they failed, the downtime cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost production.

There’s no ‘give’ with ceramic-lined steel pipe. There’s no tolerance for incorrect measurements. If there’s any misalignment during installation or in the tile liner, the slurry works its way under the tiles and holes out the steel substrate.

That’s why we recommended an option with more flexibility. Mining hose can better absorb and dissipate impact from high-velocity particles. It also has greater tolerance for twisting, stretching, and bending into place to correct misalignment.

The supervisor decided to trial one side of the feed with our Australian-made Slurryflex CLX ceramic-lined mining hose against the lined steel pipe.

The results could not have been clearer.

Within months, the ceramic-lined piping had holed out and failed, while the Slurryflex CLX lasted more than two years.

That’s more than 4x the wear life.

It’s a big win for the supervisor and his team. He’s reduced costly downtime and put an end to constant bandaging and leaking pipes.

Slurry pump piping can be the ‘problem child’ in the plant. Creating havoc and in constant need of attention.

That was the case at this mine site in Western Australia when they asked us for help in 2020. But a simple upgrade has reduced maintenance (and stress) for the team.

And increased the wear life by 6x.

The existing pump tailings spools were ceramic-lined steel, but were only lasting 3 months. They’d felt confident choosing ceramic-lined steel for this application because it’s known for being durable with abrasive slurry.

What was the problem? It wasn’t the ceramic lining, rather, the issue was having a rigid steel spool around a turbulent vibrating slurry pump.

Vibration from the pump would quickly cause the spool to misalign, leak, and fail long before it should. This was both time consuming and costly.

We recommended ceramic-lined mining hose reducers to solve the issue. Mining hose absorbs vibration, while the ceramic tile lining is durable enough to cope with abrasive particles.

We custom manufactured Slurryflex CLX ceramic-lined mining hose reducers to fit each slurry pump. The new hoses were installed in March 2021, and are still running today.

That’s more than 6x the wear life over the rigid ceramic-lined spools.

Now they ‘set and forget’ their slurry pump piping—a big win for their maintenance team.