Wear protection

6. Wear protection
In a slurry pump, the wet end wear parts are always exposed to the slurry and have to be
protected against wear.
Material selection for impeller and casing is just as important as the pump selection itself.

There are three different conditions that

create wear in a slurry pump:
1. Abrasion
2. Erosion
3. Corrosion

Abrasion
There are three major types of abrasion:

Abrasion only occurs in two areas in a

slurry pump
1. B etween impeller and the stationary
inlet
2. Between shaft sleeve and the
stationary packing

In slurry pumps, we have mainly grinding and low stress abrasion. Abrasion rate is dependent on particle size and
hardness.

Erosion
This is the dominant wear in slurry pumps. The reason is that particles in the slurry hit the material surface
at different angles.
Erosion wear is heavily influenced by how the pump is operated. Erosion wear is, in general, at a minimum at the
BEP flow rate, and increases with lower as well as higher flows. See Chapter 12 - Best Efficiency Point (BEP) section.
For reasons that are not well understood, erosion wear can also increase dramatically if the pump is allowed
to operate on “snore”; that is, taking air into the inlet pipe. See page 51 for sump design.

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There are three major types of erosion:

Effect of erosion on pump components

Impeller
The impeller is subject to impact wear (high and low) mainly in the eye, on
the gland side shroud (A), when the flow turns 90°. On the leading edge
A of the vane (B).
B
Sliding bed and low angular impact occur along the vanes between the
impeller shrouds (C).
C

Side liners (inlet and back liners)

Side liners are subject to sliding bed and crushing and grinding abrasion.

Volute
The volute is subject to impact wear on the cut water. Sliding bed and low
angular impact wear occurs in the rest of the volute.

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 Wear protection

Corrosion
The corrosion (and chemical attacks) of the wet parts in a slurry pump is a complex phenomenon both for metal
and elastomer material. Corrosion and erosion can operate together to multiply the overall effect.
For guidance, chemical resistance tables for metals and elastomer material are given on pages 22 and 23.

Wear protection – what options?

Major options available in selecting wear protection materials:

• Impeller and casing in hard metal in various white iron
and steel alloys
• Elastomer lined impeller and casing protected with elastomer liners.
Elastomers normally available in various grades of rubber or Polyurethane
• A combination of hard metal impeller with elastomer lined casing

Selection of wear materials

The selection of wear protection materials is a balance between resistance to wear and ability to manufacture
parts cost effectively.
There are two strategies for resisting wear:
1. The wear material has to be hard to resist cutting action of impinging solids.
2. The wear material has to be elastic to be able to absorb the shocks and rebound of particles.

Parameters for selection

The dominant wear materials in slurry pumps are hard metal and soft elastomers. Metso Outotec supplies a wide
range of optional materials for both.

The selection of wear parts is normally based on the following parameters:

• Solid size (solid S.G., shape, and hardness)
• Slurry temperature
• pH and type of chemicals
• Impeller speed: which is typically limited according to the Wear Service
Class as recommended in HI Standard ANSI/HI 12.1-12.6

See the table on next page for general guidance.

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 Wear protection

Effect of particle size on material selection

Tyler standard
Particle size Particle
Sieve series General pump classification
description
inch mm Mesh size

>3 >76.2 Dredge

Dredge
3 76.2 Cobbles
pumps
pumps
2.5 63.5
1.5 38.1
1.05 26.7
0.883 22.43 Austenitic
Austenic
0.742 18.85 Hard manganese
manganese
0.624 15.85 Iron steel
steel
Hard
0.525 13.34 pumps
pumps pumps
Iron
0.441 11.20 pumps
0.371 9.42 Screen
0.312 7.92 2.5 Shingle Rubber-lined
0.265 6.73 3 Gravel pumps;
Rubber-lined pumps; Gravel
Gravel
0.233 5.92 3.5 Pebbles closedround
closed impeller: impeller: pumps
pumps
0.187 4.75 4 particles round parcles
0.157 3.99 5
0.132 3.35 6
0.111 2.82 7
0.0937 2.38 8
0.0787 2.00 9 Rubber-lined
0.0661 1.68 10 pumps;
0.0555 1.41 12 Rubber-lined pumps;
closed impeller
closed impeller:
0.0469 1.19 14
Very
0.0394 1.00 16
coarse sand
0.0331 0.841 20
0.0278 0.706 24 Slurry
0.0234 0.594 28 and
Slurry
0.0197 0.500 32 Coarse sand sand
Polyure- and
0.0165 0.419 35 pumps
thane-lined sand
0.0139 0.353 42
pumps; pumps
0.0117 0.297 48
0.0098 0.249 60 And
0.0083 0.211 65 Medium Rubber-
0.0070 0.178 80 sand lined
0.0059 0.150 100 pumps,
0.0049 0.124 115 open
Polyurethane-lined Hard
0.0041 0.104 150 Impeller.
pumps; Rubber-lined
Fine sand Iron
0.0035 0.089 170 pumps, open Impeller. pumps
0.0029 0.074 200 Hard Iron
0.0025 0.064 250 pumps
0.0021 0.053 270 Very Fine
0.0017 0.043 325 sand
0.0015 0.038 400
0.025
Note: 0.020
Silt
1 mm = 0.010
1000 μm
0.005
Mud clay
0.001

Table 1 Classification of pumps according to solid particle size (Sand hardness particles).

Selection of wear material – Metals

Metal is generally more tolerant to abuse than rubber and is the best choice for coarse materials. Commonly used
metals are:
High chromium irons
High chromium white iron (Metso Outotec GPS800 and GPS805)
Standard material for most pump ranges with a nominal hardness of 650 Brinell Hardness Number (BHN). Can be
used at pH values down to 3.5 depending on chloride content. 30 % chromium white irons (Metso Outotec GPS830)
is used for more corrosive applications, see figure on next page.

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 Wear protection

Alloy selection chart for corrosion applications

1. Black lines A, B, and C define main corrosion levels.
2. There is NO sharp boundary between average and high corrosion, thus the same material can be used
on either side of line A, depending on presence of other ions besides CI ions.
a) If no other ions are present, use lower chromium material (Metso Outotec GPS800 and GPS805).
b) If Sulfate and/or Phosphate ions are present (50<ppm<2000), then use the higher chromium content
material (Metso Outotec GPS830).
c) F
 or either Sulfate and/or Phosphate ions >2000 ppm, refer to Metso Outotec.

Selection of wear material – Elastomers

Natural rubber is by far the most widely used elastomer in slurry pumping. It is the most cost effective solution for
fine solids. Generally, depending on their sharpness and density, particle sizes of up to 5-8 mm can be
pumped before the rubber is cut by the solids.

Warning!
Oversize scrap and sharp particles can destroy the wear parts, especially the impeller.

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 Wear protection

The elastomer families

Natural rubbers
Metso Outotec’s natural rubber grades are:
Code 110 Soft liner material
Code 168 High strength impeller/liner material

These materials come as standard materials for different pump ranges.

Synthetic rubbers
Metso Outotec offers chlorobutyl rubber as our synthetic rubber option as per the table below.

Polyurethanes
There are different types of polyurethanes, both ester and ether based. The comparison between polyurethanes
should be done with great care. Metso Outotec uses a special ether-type of polyurethane.
Polyurethane is available for most pump ranges and offers excellent wear resistance for finer particles (<0.15 mm
(100 Mesh), but it is at the same time less sensitive to oversized scrap than rubber. It has its peak performance
in low angular impact and sliding wear. It is commonly used in flotation circuit pumps when oil or hydrocarbon
reagents are used.
The table below can be used as a general guide for elastomer selection.

Material Chemical properties Thermal properties

Highest service temp. °C (°F)

Wear Oils, hydro­
Diluted acids Strong acids
resistance carbons Continuously Occasionally
Natural
Excellent Good Poor Poor 65 (149) 75 (167)
rubbers
ChloroButyl Good Excellent Good Good 80 (176) 100 (212)
Polyurethane Very good Fair Poor Good 50 (122) 65 (149)

For exact data on chemical resistance, see tables in chapter 31.

Something about ceramic liners

Although ceramic has a high resistance against wear, temperature, and most chemicals, it has never really been
accepted as a day-to-day standard in slurry pumping.
Being both brittle and expensive to manufacture, development work on ceramic continues in an attempt to improve
its acceptability.

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