Crusher Pump Volute Abrasion Lining

The challenge

A slurry pump on a crusher circuit handles a hard, abrasive feed that wears the volute fast. The slurry scours the wear path, thinning the casting wall and grooving the metal where the flow turns hardest. As that metal is lost the pump moves less and the wear accelerates, until the casting is too thin to hold and the unit comes off the circuit. A new casting is costly and carries a long lead time, and the plant cannot leave the duty pump down while it waits.

Our approach

We take the volute into the shop and look at where the slurry has cut the metal. We grit-blast the wear path and the surrounding casting back to clean, profiled substrate so the repair holds. We rebuild the lost metal and the grooves with a Belzona 1000 Series composite, bringing the wall back to profile. Over that we trowel an abrasion-resistant composite along the wear path, matched to the hardness of the feed, so the slurry runs against the lining instead of the bare casting. We finish the surface to follow the original flow and return the pump ready for the circuit.

1. Assess and map the wearWe inspect the volute to map where the slurry has thinned the wall and grooved the wear path, and confirm the feed so the lining is matched to it.
2. Grit-blast prepWe grit-blast the wear path and surrounding casting back to a clean, profiled substrate so both the rebuild and the lining bond to bare metal.
3. Rebuild lost metalWe rebuild the thinned wall and the grooves with a Belzona 1000 Series composite, working cold so the casting sees no heat distortion.
4. Line the wear pathWe apply an abrasion-resistant composite along the wear path, matched to the hardness of the slurry, and finish it to follow the original flow.
5. Return to the circuitWe check the lining and turn the rebuilt volute back over to the plant ready to go back on the crusher circuit.