#769: SuperPump Unique Design Increases Equipment Life Span

Dan Wolfe

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Dan Wolfe is a mechanical engineer at Syncrude Research and Development.

He solved a big, expensive maintenance problem for the oil sands company by designing what’s called
a Super Pump.  

His invention reduces the damage from big rocks slamming through the pump’s impeller as the raw bitumen is pipelined from the mine to the extraction plant.

DAN WOLFE:  Solution?  Like many things in the oil sands was to make it bigger.  In this case it was bigger and slower. we were able to slow down the speed at which the impeller,  the rotating part of the pump rotated, that slowed down the collision velocity of the rocks in the impeller.  And that allowed them to last up to three times longer.

Dan increased the pump’s size from 30 tons to 100 tons and the impellers now over 2 meters in diameter.

DAN WOLFE:   So the amount of power it takes to operate these pumps is actually unchanged. But the performance part that we’ve improved is the life span.  So we’re getting three  times the life span on these pumps that we used to get.  We’re only maintaining them once a year instead of three times of year.  

Dan Wolfe says Syncrude chose not to patent the Super Pump, deciding instead to make the design available to all oil sands companies.

Thanks today to Syncrude.

FOR INNOVATION ANTHOLOGY
I’M CHERYL CROUCHER

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Syncrude

 

Program Date: 2016-03-29