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Introduction
Published in Henry Liu, Pipeline Engineering, 2017
The slurry pipeline is used to transport fine particles of solids mixed with a liquid, usually water, to form a paste (slurry) that can be pumped through the pipeline. It is used commonly in mining for transporting both minerals and mine wastes (tailings). An example is the Black Mesa Coal Slurry Pipeline, which transports 5 million tons of coal each year from Arizona to Nevada, over a distance of 273 mi (438 km), using 18-inch-diameter steel pipe. The slurry in this pipeline is a mixture of fine coal particles (of less than 1 mm size) and water, at the ratio of approximately 1 to 1 by weight. Figure 1.5 is a photograph of a pump station of the Black Mesa Pipeline.
Numerical simulation of pressure profile of mining backfill fly-ash slurry in an L-shaped pipe using a validated Herschel-Bulkley model
Published in Journal of Sustainable Cement-Based Materials, 2023
Defeng Wang, George Barakos, Zhanbo Cheng, Helmut Mischo, Jinhai Zhao
Slurry pumping is a well-established technology, to the extent that long distance slurry pipeline systems are widely used nowadays for the transportation of mineral concentrates [12]. Factually, slurry pipelines have an excellent track record of efficiency, safety and lower costs when compared to conventional bulk transport systems [13,14]. However, pumping mineral concentrates over several kilometers seems to be less challenging than pumping paste and thickened tailings over even shorter distances. Despite the tested efficiency of slurry pipelines using high pressure pumps, there is still reluctance within the waste disposal and backfilling engineering community to embrace this kind of technology. Generally, the excuses given are the high costs, potentially unsafe high pipeline pressures, and complex maintenance operations that are not suited to a mining operation [12].
Analysis of transport properties with varying parameters of slurry in horizontal pipeline using ANSYS fluent
Published in Particulate Science and Technology, 2020
Ming-Zhi Li, Yan-Ping He, Ya-Dong Liu, Chao Huang
Most research about slurry pipeline transport has focused on predicting friction loss and critical velocity (i.e., no stable particle bed, the lowest pressure loss point), but recently more attention has been paid to the operational costs arising from pipeline wear and maintenance. Industrially transported slurry is generally heterogeneous within the pipeline because the lower half has a greater solid concentration than the upper half (due to gravity), and will thus suffer worse wear. The safety and lifetime of a pipeline can be improved by rotating according to the degree of abrasion around the circumference. This requires accurate prediction of pipeline wear around the circumference, and a proper model for predicting the slurry concentration and velocity distributions is the precondition.
Experimental investigations and CFD modeling for flow of highly concentrated iron ore slurry through horizontal pipeline
Published in Particulate Science and Technology, 2019
Navneet Kumar, Manoj Kumar Gopaliya, D. R. Kaushal
A slurry pipeline system is commonly used across the world as a viable alternative means of a large-scale solids transport through pipelines for conveying different materials, such as fly ash, iron ore, coal, lime stone, gilsonite, copper concentrate, and zinc tailings. Such systems use water as a carrier fluid. These systems find a huge relevance in inaccessible and difficult terrains where a long pipeline can once be laid for a continuous delivery of large mass flux of materials, thus, making it a techno-economical and superior mode of transport over the other conventional modes of solids transportation such as railways, roadways, or belt conveyors. In addition, enclosed nature of conduits adds additional advantage to these systems for costly or even hazardous materials as they are not prone to theft or environment depletion, respectively. Advantages like low maintenance cost, reliability and round-the-year availability of pulverized solid materials making slurry transportation systems increasingly popular for both in-plant and long-distance transportation in many industries. Studies of Link, Faddick, and Lavingia (1974) and Seshadri (1979) showed that the transportation of solids over a long distance through pipelines is relatively more economical than the conventional mode of transportation. Recognition to these systems have broadened the accessibility to mineral deposits in remote areas in an affordable manner which otherwise could have not been utilized due to huge carrying cost.