How Do I Prevent Slurry Pump Abrasion and Corrosion? - KSB

Jun. 09, 2025

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How Do I Prevent Slurry Pump Abrasion and Corrosion? - KSB

In the long run, nothing is as crucial to slurry pump design as wear life. On any given day, countless particles and chemicals within slurry can wear down pump parts and negatively affect performance. The two phenomena most responsible for everyday wear impact on pump part wear life are corrosion and abrasion. But what are they — and what causes them?

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Corrosion and abrasion 101

Corrosion occurs when chemicals within slurry interact with the materials that comprise pumps and dissolve them over time. Abrasion, on the other hand, occurs when hard particles — like sand or gravel — rub against solid surfaces and wear them down. Both types of wear can hurt pump performance. It’s important to understand what causes abrasion and corrosion so that you can prevent premature wearing of your pump parts.

Fortunately, KSB GIW, Inc. has developed a range of parts custom-built to resist both corrosion and abrasion. They’ve also created tools to help mine operators select the right parts for their slurry pumping needs. When it comes to part selection, however, there’s a lot to consider: Are the particles in the slurry especially large or sharp? Is the liquid in the slurry acidic? How much hydraulic pressure is necessary to transport the slurry?

That’s where GIW’s SLYSEL software comes in. GIW’s patented pump selection software helps users determine the right KSB GIW, Inc. pump for any mining environment to maximize corrosion and abrasion resistance and extend pump wear life. The software’s wear material selection is based on a few factors:

Solid size, shape, and hardness, which impact abrasion.
Slurry temperature, pH, and chemical content, which impact corrosion.
Impeller speed, which determines how much energy pumps impart to slurry.

Pump materials

With those factors in mind, it’s time to consider the materials that make up a pump. Hard irons — such as white cast iron — and martensitic steels are used most often in slurry pumps. These offer considerably higher resistance than ordinary steel. GIW’s Gasite® white irons are free of graphite, so they’re best for slurries with large particles as well as high temperatures and pH. These metals are superior to carbon and low-alloy steels, which are not as corrosion- and abrasion-resistant. In fact, hard irons and martensitic steels are especially effective for such applications as oil sands mining.

On the other hand, soft liners like elastomers are effective for small particles, low temperatures, and low pH. Additionally, ceramic wear parts are useful when slurries are especially abrasive and pumps must resist extreme wear in low-pressure applications. When used alongside tough metal parts, these liners and specialized wear parts help slurry pumps perform more efficiently and extend pump life.

The materials used in slurry pumps largely depend on application conditions and the degree of corrosion or abrasion each pump must resist. GIW recommends a few slurry pumps based on their applications:

Abrasion resistance — Endurasite, T32G, and 18G alloys offer superior abrasion resistance. The KSB GIW, Inc. LCC®, TBC/WBC High Pressure®, and MDX® pumps are all recognized for high performance and low maintenance — even with aggressively abrasive slurries and severe conditions.
Corrosion resistance — The Gasite® T90G alloy offers excellent corrosion resistance. The KSB GIW, Inc. LCV Heavy Duty Vertical®, LCC®, and LSA® pumps come highly recommended thanks to their use of highly corrosion-resistant alloys.
Corrosion and abrasion resistance — Several GIW alloys offer the best of both worlds. Many high-alloy martensitic steels like 18CS, HH, and HK alloys are corrosion- and abrasion-resistant. Pumps like the KSB GIW, Inc. Mega Slurry Pump® are especially effective. GIW recommends these for slurries with coarse or fine particles as well as slurries that are severely abrasive, corrosive, or both.

When it comes to GIW’s range of pump and material offerings, this list is only the tip of the iceberg. The GIW SLYSEL selection software provides more in-depth and customized pump options for a variety of industries, including mining, energy, manufacturing, and building services. This comprehensive user-friendly tool can help you determine the optimal solution for your projects and maximize your slurry pump wear life.

The 5 MUSTS for Choosing the Best Slurry Pump

The design of a slurry pump is critical to making sure that the abrasive and often corrosive aspects of the slurry does not destroy the impeller. Additionally, slurry and sludge may contain large unforeseen solids that will inevitably clog many types of pumps. Since most centrifugal pumps have an impeller with a close tolerance to the volute, the abrasive and sometimes corrosive nature of the slurry will quickly wear the volute and ruin the tolerance. This, in turn, causes the pump to lose its suction capability. This causes massive downtime with slurry pumps along with costly maintenance and spare parts.

Link to INDUX

For this reason, the EDDY Pump is ideal for slurry pumping applications. The EDDY Pump does not have an impeller, but instead a rotor that does not have any critical tolerances. This allows it to pump slurry at rates of 30% and solids up to 12 inches. This is far more than what centrifugal pumps can handle without any failure or need to change wear parts.

Choosing the proper material for a slurry pump is another critical process for determining the correct pump to handle your slurry. If the slurry is highly abrasive with a neutral pH then the best construction material is a Hi-Chrome. This metallurgy has the highest Brinell hardness that can withstand the abrasive nature of the slurry. On the other hand, if the slurry is not only abrasive but also has a low pH, it is best to go with a duplex stainless steel construction. This material is the best for a slurry pump to withstand caustic material such as acid, while still having a high Brinell level.

Adding lime with water, as a slurry, allows the solution to be pumped considerable distances, making transporting the material easier than mechanically loading into trucks. As you can imagine, the lime slurry is not only corrosive but abrasive as well, which can pose challenges for all types of pumps. Due to these challenges, pump manufacturers are constantly coming up with new designs for reducing the detrimental effects that lime slurry can have on their equipment and production rates. Some of these design ideas are featured on multiple types of pumps including slurry pumps, centrifugal pumps, and peristaltic pumps. Typically, the answer to effectively pumping lime is to keep the fluid moving constantly to maintain the chemical in suspension. With lime slurry, it is important to constantly be reaching a critical line velocity in which there is enough flow and turbulence to prevent sediment from building up in dead spots or crevices found throughout the system. It goes without saying that cleaning limescale in pipes can be very labor intensive, expensive, and particularly in metal pipes. Ideally, the pipeline should be as smooth as possible with an open flow path, making sure the flow rate is directly proportional to maintaining momentum. This is why the EDDY Pump’s turbulent flow design is perfect for keeping the slurry agitated enough to not accumulate on the sides of the pipelines.

Determining the proper slurry pump size and power requirements for your application is crucial. Based on the abrasive nature of slurries, it is important to choose a pump size that will allow for the pump to run at a slow enough speed in order to lengthen the duration of the slurry pump’s life. An ideal RPM to run a slurry pump at is between 900- RPM. Once you begin to exceed this speed, the life of the pump significantly decreases because the wear points in the slurry pump essentially get sandblasted.

As you can see in the 4″ EDDY Pump shown above, the tolerance between the rotor and the volute easily allows the passage of a man’s arm, while the tolerance in a centrifugal pump is significantly less.

This means you can pump MORE solids with LESS clogging.

For more information on EDDY Pump technology, click here.

Contact us to discuss your requirements of Medium Abrasion Slurry Pump. Our experienced sales team can help you identify the options that best suit your needs.

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