With the new budget and the Government’s expansive plan to rebuild the economy, the concrete industry can confidently look at a major increase in demand. Surface mounted pumps play a key role in the ready mix batching process, being used for recycling batch water, plant washdown and a wide range of other duties.
Self-priming pumps installed in these applications have many advantages over their conventional end suction equivalents. The ability to self-prime eliminates the time-wasting process of filling the supply hose or line before start up.
Australian Pump Industries are leaders in this field with a wide range of self-priming centrifugal pumps. These pumps perform well in both high pressure and high flow applications with the ability to self-prime through a vertical lift of as much as six metres.
Australian Pumps’ Aussie GMP range of semi trash pumps are designed with a large tank incorporated in the pump’s casing. A check valve on the suction inlet prevents water escaping from the pump body.
The priming process is simple. Here’s how it works.Â
- The operator fills the pump body with water through a priming port on top. The check valve holds the water in the pump.
- When the motor starts the water in the body is expelled through the delivery port.
- The vacuum created opens the check valve and water is drawn up through a suction hose, like drinking through a straw.
The beauty of this system is there are no attachments required to prime the pump. It’s a very simple process and vacuum pumps, or compression priming devices are completely unnecessary.
Aussie GMP concrete batch plant pumps are cast iron and are first world production, built to ISO 9001 standards.
Best of all, to assist plant maintenance, the pumps incorporate a clean-out port built into the front of the body. This enables any chokes inside the pump to be cleared without disconnecting pipework.
“The opening front port makes it a piece of cake to wash down the pump internals”, said Aussie Pumps’ Chief Engineer, John Hales. “We also built a drain plug into the pump sump to easily drain silt and settled material,” he said.
The pumps all come with heavy duty single or three phase electric motors rated up to 22 kW. The pumps will handle flows up to 2,300 lpm and heads as high as 78 metres!
Aussie semi trash pumps are fitted with silicon carbide mechanical seals and big open impellers to enable solids to be passed. They also feature a stainless steel wear plate to protect the internals of the pump’s body. The company also specify 316 stainless steel motor shaft as standard equipment.
All pumps, over 4 kW are mounted on a powder coated steel base. Galvanised or stainless steel bases are also available for particularly corrosive applications. An abrasive resistant 316 stainless steel impeller can be supplied as an option for most models.
