Are there any mining engineers on beyond with experience with moving products by slurry? Looking to pick someone's brain on some good resources to learn about it and considerations for design.
Printable View
Are there any mining engineers on beyond with experience with moving products by slurry? Looking to pick someone's brain on some good resources to learn about it and considerations for design.
My body does this regularly.
I can talk to the SO and see if she can get you in touch with someone from her office. She works for a company with a mining division.
Petroleum engineers make petroleum jelly. Mining engineers make dogecoins?
@killramos is pretty good at mining for boogers, could probably schedule a meeting or two to eng-plain it to you
You don't necessarily need a Mining Eng for this. Mech Eng's who have worked in tailings jobs or hydrotransport for/with the big operators in Fort McMurray will also know a reasonable amount.
I know a little bit... Some basics are that it's expensive as shit and the pumps and piping require massive maintenance more than annually (like closer to quarterly).
Tailings piping is about 0.75" wall thickness and "elbows" are chromium carbide overlay which makes them roughly $50k and they last 12 months. Hydrotransport piping is also $$$ but often uses magic rubber liners like "iracore" to wear longer. Piping is often "flanged" with glorified Victaulic couplings rather than massive bolted flanges.
Big slurry pumps usually follow HI standards rather than API. A company called GIW in Augusta, Georgia is a major player in this. 4,000 HP pumps are not a big deal for them and likely also Weir and another name similar to Bornemann that I can't precisely recall right now. Expect entire impellers to be replaced in preposterously short intervals and try to fathom the electrical requirements for pumps that big. And the piping stress and the size of the building to hold them allowing maintenance access... And the cranes... Slurries are non-Newtonian fluids and pumping them efficiently is complicated. Decades of work have resulted in a variety of fluid categories for different oilsands slurries that behave "semi plastic" or "visco-plastic" or whatever. In oilsands and from a research, PhD perspective, Dr. Masliah and Dr. Grey from the UofA are likely the top two experts in the field.
With "normal" ore mining your flow rates will likely be much lower and more "gentle" but you are more likely pumping caustic/acidic materials, so that's an issue. Your mine may also be in a 3rd world country with fuck all for reliable power.
What are you trying to do? Don't say "thinking about replacing a conveyor with a slurry pumps/piping" because once you create a slurry you also need to uncreate it and that brings you into... Tailings Ponds. The third dirtiest words in Alberta. Just ask any true expert such as a blockbuster film director or a Swedish teenager.
I have ordered a brotractor from Amazon Peasant. I may not know how to use it now, but I am determined to learn how to draw triangles with it. Give me a year and I will fit in with you all.
Thanks for the insight. I will put some more ideas together and maybe bug you with more questions. Without going into too much detail I've been spit balling a variety of high level ideas with a client for transporting sand 4-6km as they have some insurmountable challenges in that area that make trucking impossible . The idea would be to transport large amounts of sand to a slurry station then pump it down a right of way to a dewatering and drying facility where it could then continue its travel. I've pumped sand that kind of distance my whole career in all sorts of fluids but its always been down a well which obviously has different dynamics. Right now I am just trying to wrap my head around the concept and figure out how to size pipes and pumps for the kind of volumes we are thinking and what a maintenance schedule looks like. Also if there are any additives required to keep it in a slurry and reduce friction or if we can get away with just keeping up the velocity to overcome settling That will tell us if it's worth continuing to bark up that tree or if we should keep looking for other ideas.
I'm looking through some of my old fluid dynamics text books but I figured I'd ask here if anyone had any other papers or text books on this subject that I should be reading.
Can I has your old fluid dynamics text books after you are done? I think that is a topic I could be good at.
Attachment 92982
There will not be additives required; but, you will need to maintain flow above the "deposition velocity" to avoid it settling into the bottom. That's really bad because eventually it becomes plugged which they call "sanded off".
Ahh yes, the ol sandoff scenario. I'm familiar with that concept having frac'ed for a decade, but I don't think there is any flowing back a pipeline. Do you have any articles, papers, or text books you can think of I should read?
Ahh yes, the ol Mexican sandoff.
Attachment 92985
.
Engineering sounds like a fascinating career choice. I would love to learn more but I can't find any online engineering degrees. Do they even exist?
Find the first 3 years of any science degree and then add a couple courses on fudge factors and you will be 99% there.
Oh and you need to make sure you take a course on being a pretentious douche to affirm your status as better than everyone around you.
Pinkey ring you can get on eBay.
Ordered the ring. Only $9.99!
Attachment 93061