A GIW Industries’ LSA model pump installed at the Noranda Alumina Plant in Gramercy, Louisiana, USA, has operated continuously with only routine maintenance for 52 years. Installed at the plant startup in 1959, the LSA pump operates on the plant’s press floor turnback area, handling bauxite mud slurry at a specific gravity of 1.25 and temperature of 125^oF. The slurry is fed to the pump from a tank that receives excess mud, caustic liquor and dilution water from the filter press that dewaters mud for disposal. The pump recirculates excess material to a mud settler tank located some 200 m away.Conley Jones, senior reliability engineer at the Noranda plant, notes that these have been some of the most reliable pumps in the plant. “The mud that is fed to the filter press floor must be removed from the process continuously, in order to separate it from the process, which then proceeds to send the caustic liquor containing the dissolved alumina to the precipitation area for further processing,” says Jones.

This repetitive process is key to producing solid alumina crystals – the raw material needed for smelting aluminum.

GIW pumps have been in service throughout the Noranda Alumina Plant in Gramercy since the plant started operations in early 1959. With a total of more than 150 working units in the plant, GIW pumps handle
the hot, abrasive slurries as they are moved from the milling and slurry mix areas to the digesters. Then the pumps move the slurries through the processes of mud separation and filtering, precipitation and calcinations to create the finished dry alumina product.

David S. Pratt, President of GIW partner Hunter Equipment Co, says, “GIW pumps have proven to be a vital part of this plant’s success as one of the most efficient alumina plants in the industry. The high chrome alloys used in the GIW pump line provide excellent abrasion resistance and long life cycles in severe duties and provide the plant with reliable performance and lower maintenance costs than other brands of pumps.”