A hydroelectric power plant was built in Austria. In order to power the turbine a pressure flow tunnel had to be drilled with a diameter of 7,5 meters and total length approx. 20 km. For the tunnel construction a TBM (tunnel boring machine) was used and a lot of pumps were needed for the removal of the formation water which occured during the drilling.
During the drilling process the formation water was pumped to a water treatment plant for cleaning which worked well for a while. However, one day the workers at the water treatment plant discovered an graphite film floating on the formation water coming from the tunnel. This discovery stopped the whole project as the water treatment plant was not designed for graphite separation. After some investigation the engineers found that the graphite film was resulting ffrom the drillign process as the material was inside of the rocks. A solution for separation of water and graphite at the water treatment plant had to be found.
After assessemnt of the material and the installation on site the Tsurumi engineering team proposed a solution with a Tsurumi FSP scum skimmer. FSP allows for water surface removal of contaminations. Although graphite is similar to oil, in this case Tsurumi recommended the use of FSP with a close monitoring of the seals. Nevertheless, by design Tsurumi products have dual inside mechancial seals, hence by default they are #stronger4longer. In this applicaiton the customer operated the FSP for several months without any issues nor maintenance until the graphite was gone.
In the event of abrasive and corrosive utilization, stronger wear and tear will take place naturally in certain components. With regards to the above application wear and tear can take place mainly in impeller, agitator, suction plate, shaft sleeve, oil ring, mechanical seal, pump casing, strainer, motor casing and discharge coupling. Depending on the working conditions the lifetime of those parts might vary significantly and can be shorter than the legal warranty period.
In this regard, please pay attention to our general terms and conditions that we also send to you by mail on request.