In mid 2013, Wilfley made their very first shipment of EMW® slurry pumps to one of the leading global producers of calcium carbonate. This difficult application was a perfect chance to show off the brand new heavy duty slurry pump and we’re proud to report that all of the pumps are still going strong with all of their original parts still intact. That’s almost TWO YEARS of uninterrupted service!
The EMW® slurry pumps were purchased to replace some of our competitor’s pumps that kept failing prematurely due to the abuse of the difficult application. Calcium carbonate is a difficult type of slurry to pump because of the high percentage of very abrasive fine solids. Even though the previous pumps were built with the competition’s “top of the line” hard iron material, the pump cases would still need to be replaced at least once every three months. This forced the customer to need to keep a large quantity of expensive cases on hand at all times. The MAXALLOY® 5A cases for the EMW® slurry pumps, on the other hand, have already lasted eight times longer and still haven’t needed to be replaced.
The EMW® slurry pumps in this application required mechanical seals because they were being used in a wide range of conditions with variable frequency drives. Wilfley worked in conjunction with AES Seal to provide the best solution for the customer, which ended up being a double mechanical seal designed specifically for slurry applications. Due to the care and effort from Wilfley during the selection process as well as proper maintenance by the customer, all of the pumps are still using the originally installed mechanical seals as well.
The calcium carbonate producer couldn’t be happier with the performance of these pumps. They’re now looking into a new project to replace the remaining competitor’s pumps. This shows all of the value that Wilfley adds to their pumps and when you look at all of the costs of ownership of a pump (spare parts, maintenance costs, etc.) it is obvious that Wilfley pumps cost less… because they last longer.
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