GIW Industries gave live demonstrations of its common slurry system operations to attendees at the 2015 SME Conference & Expo in Denver, Colorado, in February.
At the KSB / GIW Industries booth, visitors watched as GIW’s slurry loop demonstration gave them a close-up view of the slurry process that can not be viewed during normal operations. The slurry loop, a portable pipe system modelled in clear plastic tubing, provides a way to see how the physics of particle transport works inside a slurry system.
GIW’s resident slurry pump expert Reab Berry conducted the demonstrations, which highlight three essential concepts of particle transportation in pipelines:
Small particle transport: small particles the size of beach sand are the most difficult to pump
Cyclone operation: a miniature cyclone demonstrates how particle separation happens inside a slurry system
Incline pipelines: in a moveable section of the model, visitors see how surging occurs in an inclined section of a pipeline
Berry is an experienced trainer with more than 50 years in the industry and has conducted multiple demonstrations during each day of the conference.
Berry said: "This demonstration has a high appeal to a wide variety of attendees, including customers, equipment representatives, potential customers, operators, plant managers, professors, consultants, a lot of students and a few competitors."
Providing an open forum for training and education is a core value of GIW Industries. Throughout its history, the company has offered formal training courses in slurry transport and pump maintenance, and regularly partners with universities and standards organisations to create documentation and train students.
The company actively integrates training into all aspects of its customer service, and the GIW hydraulic lab is an internationally known research centre that continually brings the industry ground-breaking developments in computerised methods for pump selection and slurry wear analysis, and numerous advancements in slurry pump and pipeline technology.
GIW marketing specialist Meilin Ruiz said: "This type of interactive display is very popular at our shows.
"They draw a crowd and are very educational. Because they are in demand, we are developing new interactive displays that will become a regular part of our shows going forward."
GIW’s next slurry loop demonstration will be at the CIM 2015 Convention in Montreal, 10-13 May.