The essential link: Soil Pumping Station

Moving large quantities of soil in mining operations can be done different ways. One way is the constant feed of haulage trucks by excavators.

Transporting mined materials using trucks requires a carousel of trucks and their drivers, all contributing to road congestion, dust, noise and emissions.

Another way to transport these mined materials is by making use of a Soil Pumping Station. The excavator feeds the Station, water is added for slurrification and a heavy-duty dredge pump transports the material to the desired location.

Soil Pumping Stations are nothing new.

Designed in the 1950 by De Groot Nijkerk – the forerunner of Damen Dredging – to work on large infrastructural projects in the Netherlands such as the construction of the motorways and the excavations required for laying gas pipe lines.

Enormous quantities of sand were relocated using these Soil Pumping Stations, where they formed the linking pin between dry mining and dredging.

Now with fully updated designs, the modern mining slurrification units are ready to storm the market. Available in different sizes to match the excavator production, the hopper unit receives the mined material.

The dry cargo is fluidized using a water pump, and a dredge pump transports the mined sand to the desired location using a pipe line. Thus a classification plant or spoil field can be reached using a continuous pumping process.

The Soil Pumping Station consist of a number of standard elements.

First of all the hopper itself, a container sized receptacle with sloped walls and jet water nozzles for fluidization of the dry soil. A separate standard jet water pack supplies the cargo hold with pressurised water, which is used to ensure a pumpable mixture.

A standard dredge pump, which can be a DOP dredge pump or a Booster Station, is bolted to the suction mouth in the cargo hold.

A practical plug ‘n play design which can be relocated easy and consists of elements that can all be used on the next dredging project. This makes the Soil Pumping Station the essential equipment linking dry excavation with the continuous process of a dredge pump.