Concentration of mineral sands from the primary ore at Base Resources' Base Titanium Kwale operation in Kenya is carried out in two sections; the wet concentration plant (WCP) and the dry plant (mineral separation plant, or MSP. The sand and clay from the wet concentration process are mixed and disposed of hydraulically onto the mine tailings dam using two streams of three-stage series pumps, Warman~R High Pressure 8/6 FF AHP, discharge taking place via Cavex~R 650 Stacker hydrocyclones.Weir Minerals supplied the Kwale mineral sand operation with 55 Warman centrifugal slurry pumps and 46 Cavex classification cyclones in different duties. The pump supply included two pump trains, each consisting of three Warman 8/6 FF AHP high-pressure metal pumps in series to dispose of the tailings. Each tailings pump train feeds a 650CVX Cavex tailings stacker cyclone for tailings dam construction.The two streams of Warman 8/6 FF AHP pumps receive feed from a common hopper and dispose of it through a 2 km, 300 NB pipeline, with the Cavex 650CVX stacker cyclones at the end of each tailings line. Operational concerns arose during commissioning, due to the high-pressure tailings pump bearings overheating and the stacker cyclones performing inconsistently. This paper documents an on-site study conducted by Weir Minerals to determine the root cause of these problems. The study scope included effects of net positive suction head available (NPSHa) against net positive suction head required (NPSHr) of the pumps, effect of pipeline design and elevation differences on series pumping, effect of pump feed hopper design on pump performance, effect of pump performance on cyclone performance, as well as the effect of stacker cyclone installation on cyclone performance while evaluating the effect of cyclone feed pressure on performance.
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