Main achievements and future directions

Although the laboratory experiment is capable of quantifying the wear rate attributable to erosion and corrosion, the obtained numbers are not necessarily representative of the real pump operation. It should be noted that in the typical case of low content of metallic ions, the relative contribution of erosion is higher than that of corrosion (Figure 3a). Because flow conditions are determining the effective impact velocity of particles onto the surface of the impellers, it remains a challenge to determine the local flow conditions onto the complex shape of a pump component. Since there is no experimental method available for this purpose at the current state of technology, modeling remains an attractive option. However, for implementation of the model, the high content of solids in the slurry should be taken into account, ranging from 45 to 60 %wt in a typical tailing operation.