Underground mines that do not use settlers to clarify the dirty water created by their operations, utilise dirty water pumping systems to transfer the water to surface.
The most common systems in use in the industry are:
Cascade System:
This system utilises a range of different Low Head /Medium Volume centrifugal end-suction pumps, which transfer dirty water from level to level (typically 80 m between) until the water reaches surface.
Series System:
This system also utilises a range of different Low Head /Medium Volume centrifugal end suction pumps; however, the pumps are placed in series, thus higher pressures can be achieved. Instead of transferring the water between each level, the water can now be transferred up to typically 300 m.
The above systems have a multitude of limitations and downsides, with the main ones being:
- Intermediate dams between levels silting up with solids
- An extensive number of pumps required to keep up with the water demands
- Limited to Low-to-Medium volume applications
- Lack of redundancy, whereby the loss of 1 pump (breakdown) in a Cascade System or a Series System will shut the entire system down and if no redundancy exists, no pumping can take place until the breakdown unit is brought back on line.
- Intensive maintenance requirements
- Power Intensive
Scamont Engineering advocates that the pump supplier must engage with the mine or mining consultant during the early stages of mine development, in order to ensure that the dewatering system can be designed in phases, for the duration of Life of Mine (LOM). The main advantage of our technology is that there is no need to utilise the above mentioned systems. Instead, we have created our own unique system with the following positive attributes:
- High Head
- High Volume
- High Efficiencies
Scamont Engineering is currently engaged with many clients around the world, assisting them with the most appropriate dewatering solution for their specific requirements.
Through our projects that we are currently executing it has become apparent that our GSB Multistage self-balancing pump is the technology of choice for High-Volume / High Head dirty water applications.
We are also however executing projects that require Low Volume / High Head dewatering. In this instance we offer our range of positive displacement pumps.
