Improved safety and reliability with wireless instrumentation solutions for tailings dam monitoring and advanced flowmeters, valves and actuators for mining slurry flow control.
Thickener performance optimization is critical to a mine operation, but the process stability can be difficult to maintain due to slurry flow management. Mining slurry flow management can be hindered by erratic flow measurement, frequent replacement of circuit components, stoppages due to pump or control valve failures, and increased water pressure to pump thickened streams.
Emerson’s mining slurry flow management solutions incorporate advanced flowmeters, valves and actuators to provide accurate, consistent flow measurements and increased capacity to help isolate valves in thick paste applications.
Clarkson knife gate valves
Stalwart isolation valves solutions for improved mining slurry flow control.
Slurry Pipeline Corrosion Measurement Solutions
Identify pipeline deterioration early and plan corrective action.
Mining tailings dams are crucial to the effective disposal of your process byproducts and critical in safeguarding your surrounding environment. Unfortunately, they can fail due to overflow or improper design and construction and this is where a tailings dam monitoring system is crucial to your dam integrity.
Emerson’s wireless tailings dam monitoring solutions give you visibility into dam levels and subsurface elements. Our mining experts can guide you in selecting wireless solutions to ensure safe and compliant management of your tailings dams.
Wireless Flow, Level and Pressure Measurement Solutions
Gain insight into all of your tailings process parameters for more effective control and operation.
Wireless Pump Monitoring Solutions
Wireless condition monitoring of tailings dam pumps.
With Clarkson KS1 knife gate valves from Emerson, the improvement was dramatic and immediate. After 8 months, the new valves remain in service, never having required a repair or change out. The installed cost of each valve was less than $27,000, so the project paid for itself in just over two weeks, and it has been generating nearly $10,000 per week in savings since.
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Andy Coxall
Andy Coxall joins podcast host Jim Cahill to discuss the challenges in tailings management, the problems with valves not suited for this severe-service application, and why severe-service knife gate valve technology such as the Clarkson KS1 is the best choice for these challenging slurry applications.
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Alek Duerksen
Alek Duerksen’s Global Mining Review article, Making the Difficult Choices, describes the difficulties of tailing disposal and provides suggestions for choosing the proper automated isolation valves for this application.
read moreFrequently Asked Questions About Mine Tailings
Tailings requires effective management just to make the operation work cost-effectively. While the tailings risk is unlikely to affect the actual mining effort; a collapsed tailings dam can destroy the mine’s value, as well as a company’s reputation and license to operate. Wireless tailings dam monitoring can help manage risk and improve safety.
Valves play a critical role in the transportation and the disbursement of tailings. Because tailings are very abrasive and often corrosive, slurry valves used on tailing lines must be able to withstand the changing solids contents in slurries and remain operational for long periods of time. When adding pressure, density, and velocity, tailings transportation becomes an arduous environment for a valve to operate in, and the remote location of many tailings ponds means that reliability and low maintenance are extremely critical since access is inconvenient.
Miners can benefit from implementing condition monitoring solutions for tailings dam pumps to improve their availability.
