Mining Weekly

HAZLETON PUMPS® successfully manufactured and delivered five HIPPO Submersible Slurry pumps® for Carl Hamm PPS (Pty) Ltd, a subsidiary of the German company Carl Hamm GMPH.

Carl Hamm Pipes Pumps Solutions specializes in dewatering from surface where access is problematic and provide complete turnkey solutions from pump to motor including Power Generation, Electrical Switch gear and Variable Speed Drives which makes them a competent partner in abstraction and drainage projects around the globe.

The pumps were specifically designed to be exported to Koidu diamond mine owned by the Octéa Diamond Group, situated in the Kono district approximately 360 km east of Freetown, the capital city of Sierra Leone.

The HIPPO Submersible Slurry pumps® are required to pump liquids containing solids at a head of 53 m; with a delivery of 160 l/s at and with an installed power of 200Kw.

The HIPPO Submersible Slurry pump range® is regarded as the safest pump in the world as HAZLETON PUMPS® has developed specialized protective features standard to all HIPPO Submersible Slurry pumps®:

• All the HIPPO Submersible Slurry pumps® can run continuously as the stator housing is filled with oil dissipating the heat from the electrical winding ensuring that the stator winding would never burn out due to overheating.
• The oil in the stator housing has the additional benefit of lubricating the seals and bearings and in case of failure of the mechanical seals the contamination of the oil is detected by a moisture detector relays and before the liquid being pumped comes into contact with the electrical winding of the pump the pump is switched off and therefore the electrical winding can never burn out.
• The pump is also fitted with thermistors (or PT 100) to ensure that any mechanical failure of the bearings is detected.
• Any possible electrical flash inside the pump enclosure is prevented by having the pump enclosure under vacuum pressure and monitored by means of a pressure transmitter.

All the above control features are built in an electrical control panel.

The electrical control panels for this project incorporate Rockwell Automation Powerflex Variable Speed Drive’s and include all the above features as well as other standard system integration and protection parameters usually present in such a control panel.

Hazleton Pumps® manufactured the pumps at their Centurion manufacturing facility and have a local content of 98%. Only the bearings and mechanical seals used in the pumps are imported. All castings are done by local foundries and machined in-house at the HAZLETON PUMPS® facility.

The pumps and the control panels were performance tested at the Hazleton Pumps® facility before being despatched.

HAZLETON PUMPS® has received a further order from Carl Hamm Pipes Pumps Solutions and is presently manufacturing two 850kW High voltage (6.6kV) HIPPO Submersible Slurry Pumps® capable of pumping at a head of 278,4 m and with a delivery of 160 l/s.