SC scoop-control couplings, proven on slurry pumps.

The application

Slurry pumps are essential to coal-based thermal power plants, fertilizer plants, cement plants, metal and steel plants, and ore-slurry transportation. These pumps handle a range of abrasive media — ash slurry, gypsum slurry, iron-ore slurry, alumina slurry and more — and the slurry flow rate has to be varied continuously to suit process parameters, plant load, plant design and the way pump capacity was originally selected.

The problem with throttling

Across different pump and process designs, flow variation is achieved either with a variable-speed drive or by throttling. Throttling forces slurry through a restriction, which causes faster wear of the pump and demands frequent maintenance of the pump and its accessories. Varying the flow rate through speed variation instead reduces pump wear considerably and lowers power consumption — turning a maintenance headache into measurable energy saving.

The Fluidomat solution

Fluidomat SC scoop-control fluid couplings are well proven on slurry pump applications, with a field record of more than 15 years. Fluidomat has supplied a large number of SC couplings for this duty to plants across a wide power range, providing infinite speed variation in a range of about 4.5:1. The couplings adapt to automatic, semi-automatic or manual speed control and work reliably in the demanding environmental conditions of these plants. Self-standing, rugged and reliable by design, they require no maintenance.

A partial list of installations

The SC couplings below are operating successfully on slurry pump duty across India:

The outcome

By replacing throttling with stepless speed control, these plants vary slurry flow to match process demand while running pumps only as hard as needed. The result is reduced pump wear, lower power consumption and continuous energy saving — with the proven reliability of a rugged, maintenance-free coupling.