Roy Hill – 4x Longer Wear Life on Fast Wearing Slurry Lines

In 2021, we worked with the Roy Hill maintenance team to help them put an end to fast-wearing pipework in their desands plant.

The rubber-lined spools ran through the plant at height, on racking and under walkways. It was only lasting months in some areas and replacement work was labour intensive, costly and hazardous.

They wanted an option that meant they could set, forget and last well beyond the current three-month replacement schedule.

We inspected the piping and identified two key issues driving the accelerated wear:

1. A sliding bed of larger, settled slurry particles was grinding and hollowing out the bottom of the pipe. It meant the line needed constant inspections and repairs.
2. The rubber liner was peeling away, allowing slurry to seep through to pipe wall. This was due to two things. The lining was a sub-standard rubber that was not fit for purpose. There were inconsistencies in how the rubber had bonded to the steel pipe in the manufacturing process.

We recommended they consider polymer-lined steel. Polymer lining is ideal for iron ore operations. It has a high wear tolerance for sliding bed erosion, as well as gouging from higher energy particles.

The maintenance team decided to replace the rubber-lined steel with Abrasiguard. The hard-wearing liner is built for severe service and chemically bonded, so it won’t peel away from the pipe.

It has been a huge success for the team. The Abrasiguard piping has lasted more than four times longer than rubber-lined steel. They delivered on their goal and put an end to costly and hazardous repairs.