Critical Minerals Mining: Slurry Transport in Pipelines

Slurry pipelines are special in industrial applications which require transportation of solid particles through a pipeline. Transport of the solid particles is possible by mixing and suspending them in water or other carrier fluids. Slurry pipelines are cost-effective for long distances, reliable, and require low maintenance, low air & noise pollution. Importantly it is eco-friendly and less impact on environment compared to other transportation methods like trucking, railway, etc. Several minerals (some are critical!) have been successfully transported over long distances via slurry pipelines such as coal, iron concentrate, phosphate concentrate, copper concentrate, zinc concentrate, lead concentrate, nickel concentrate, and limestone.

The objective of this project is to determine minimum flow rate needed to transport solid particles of various types, densities, and sizes (say, sand, gravel, metal particles, etc.) and benchmark semi-empirical models available in literature for slurry transport of critical minerals.