Assessing Energy Savings from Using Variable-Frequency Electric Drive on Slurry Pumps at Diamond Treatment Plants

This article reviews the system of automated electric drive of the main slurry pump station at a diamond treatment plant via computer modeling in the MatLab software package. The authors used the established methods of constructing a computer model that is capable of producing steady-state operation parameters for the pump unit when the fluid level in the sump is stabilized. They improved this model by introducing a module to account for the system's behavior when the electric drive speed is below the pump speed limit. This allowed obtaining additional transient process diagrams for the controlled physical parameters of the pump. The authors calculated and demonstrated the energy efficiency of using the variable-frequency electric drive in the slurry pump station at a diamond treatment plant.