Dragflow, an Italian manufacturer of heavy duty pumps and complete dredging equipment, has successfully completed a tailings pond dredging job at an iron mine in Brazil.
Dragflow was called to face with the problem of dredging and returning the tailings back to a ‘Mineral Duct’.
In addition, it was crucial for the project to maintain the maximum capacity of the pond in order to be always ready to deal with any emergency situation, said Dragflow.
The tailings have a high content of Iron with specific gravity up to 4,9 kg/dm³ so only a super duty dredging pump with an oversize motor could do the job.
Problem and solution
Dragflow found the perfect solution supplying a DRH85/180E22 dredger equipped with the submergible dredging unit: Hydraulic Pump HY85/180A plus two Hydraulic Excavators EXHY20 and a high pressure Jet-Ring System.
This piece of dredging equipment can be operated by one operator working inside the control cabin or directly from the shore through a wireless joystick with no operator aboard, said Dragflow.
The iron ore, mixed with water, is pumped from the mine to the shore for more than 500 km through the ‘Mineral Duct’. Once the mineral arrives to the port terminal on the coast, it gets separated from the water and loaded on barges for ocean transportation.
Along the pipeline there are some booster stations and speed control valves that sometimes have to be put under maintenance. In this event it gets urgent to stop the pumping to the shore and to divert the material coming from the plant toward a tailing pond.