TESTING BEFORE SHIPMENT Recent testwork conducted on the Hippo slurry pump, which usually operates at 980 rpm, increased to 1 183 rpm when the power supply was switched to 60 Hz
South Africa-based pumps manufacturer Hazleton Pumps’ proprietary range of Hippo slurry pumps, for which Hazleton is the sole manufacturer and repairer, underwent power-differential testing in May at a specialised testing facility before a shipment of pumps could be delivered to a mine in Canada.
Hazleton Pumps MD Mathys Wehmeyer tells Mining Weekly that, while the Hippo vertical spindle slurry pump is manufactured to operate on a power supply of 50 Hz, most Hippo pumps are sold to independent crude oil and natural gas producer Canadian Natural’s Horizon oil sands project, in Alberta, Canada, which requires the pump to operate on 60 Hz.
Wehmeyer says Hazleton Pumps, therefore, contracted pumps manufacturer Sulzer to test the Hippo pump at its testing facility in Elandsfontein, Gauteng, which is the only pumps testing facility in South Africa with a 60 Hz power supply.
“Results from the test indicated that the pump, which usually operates at 980 rpm on 50 Hz, increased to 1 183 rpm when the power supply was increased to 60 Hz,” he says, adding that the pump has a capacity of 2 160 ℓ/s, operating at a head of 36 m.
The Hippo pump is classified as a medium-voltage submersible slurry pump that can be used in any mining application tasked with pumping high volumes of liquids containing solids.
“The Hippo pump was initially tested at the South African Bureau of Standards on a 50 Hz power supply, before it was launched on the local market in 2005,” says Wehmeyer. Exports to Canada began in 2006 and, to date, 23 Hippo pumps have been exported to Canada.
Sulzer’s pumps testing facility is the largest in Africa, with a 4 MW power supply at voltages of 11 kV, 6.6 kV, 5.5 kV and 3.3 kV. It also features a 400 kW power supply at voltages of 500 V and 380 V.
The facility is suitable for conducting tests on all types of pumps, including vertical, turbine, multistage, end-suction and boiler-feed pumps.