Slurry pump side-liner wear: comparison of some laboratory and field results

The current work compares some slurry pump lab wear results with the wear found across different field applications with d₈₅ particle size ranging from 100 to 4000 μm. Side-liner wear life data has been collected for two different impeller geometries and two different material classes (cast iron and natural rubber). Different field wear patterns have been photographed and categorised on the basis of particle size. The field wear patterns showed close similarity to the lab wear patterns particularly in the areas of localised gouging. Wear rates are also compared for the different geometries. Overall trend of wear with particle size for the white iron parts was similar to the grey iron lab tests albeit at significantly lower wear rates. In general, the wear with the rubber side-liner was less at smaller particle sizes but greater for particles larger than d₈₅ of about 700 μm.