Celebrating 80 years of innovation

In honour of this legendary brand, Weir Minerals hosted an event at the end of May in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia. Throughout the evening, attendees relived Warman pumps’ history and gained an insight into some of the future innovations planned.

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“It was a privilege to share this special night with some of our key customers, past and present employees, and members of the Western Australian School of Mines,” states Ricardo Garib, Divisional President of Weir Minerals. “Warman is one of our leading brands. It has truly shaped the Mining industry over the past 80 years and is a product we are all very proud of.  The Warman pump, invented to solve high wear issues in slurry pumping, created a thriving industrial business that is now the cornerstone of Weir Minerals with over 8,000 people, and over 150 manufacturing and service centres across the globe.”

Always Inventing

Charles Warman invented the Warman® slurry pump in Kalgoorlie in 1938. It was a hard wearing slurry pump that used replaceable liners and a replaceable impeller, something that had never been done before.

“Charles Warman was a visionary and an innovator. The use of rubber lining in the pump was ground breaking as it reduced total ownership costs, was safer to handle and offered extended wear life in many abrasive slurry applications. It is a great example of solving customer problems with material science, and is still taught in Universities today,” Marcus Lane, Global Product Manager for centrifugal pumps at Weir Minerals.

It was quickly adopted throughout the goldfields in Western Australia and by the 1950’s, as customer demand rose, Charles Warman expanded his business by opening offices in Sydney and Perth.

During the 1960’s the rapid growth of the business continued with manufacturing and sales outlets established around the world.  The Warman® Series ‘A’ pump was accepted and became world leader in its field. Further work on the Warman AH® pump resulted in the development of interchangeable metal and rubber wearing components.

Always Improving

The Warman® AH pump range was extended with the addition of the AHP high-pressure pump in 1974. At the time, this was the largest rubber-lined high-pressure slurry pump in the world, and is still in service today in many tailings pipelines across the globe.

Innovations continued throughout the decades, with pumps designed for a number of tough applications including Flue Gas Desulphurisation.  In 1994, the Warman® GSL pump was developed to handle high flows and corrosive slurry.  It took the market by storm due to its superior performance and long life and became the global standard.

“I think one of the key reasons for the growth of the Warman pump was that it was reliable, people came to trust it because it had been around for so long. It was this trust that enabled them to focus on other things in the plant and not have to worry about the pump stopping their business,” states Marcus Lane.

Always Innovating

The Weir Group Plc acquired the Warman® pump in 1999, and a whole new chapter began. As part of the Weir Minerals division, a number of technological advancements were achieved for the Warman® pump range. 2002 saw the development of a revolutionary new impeller and inlet design for pumping mineral froths and high-density viscous slurries, and in 2009, Weir Minerals developed the Warman® WBH pump with axial and rotationally adjustable throatbush to even out wear. Due to its innovative design, this pump soon became the new slurry pump standard.

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“Here at Weir Minerals we are always thinking of new ways to improve the Warman pump for our customers. Research and development has underpinned all of the product development that we’ve completed and is absolutely crucial to the business,” Marcus Lane says. “We have a fantastic understanding of the many environments in which our pumps operate and the mechanisms of wear. This has enabled us to tailor geometrics and materials to suit specific applications, and gives us a competitive edge in the marketplace.”

Today the Warman® pump has an unparalleled world-wide reputation in slurry pumping, commanding a leading share of the global mining market. There are few mining sites in the world where Warman® slurry pumps cannot be found.

Technology is increasing at an incredible pace, and as technology progresses and society demands new materials, the Warman® pump is primed and ready to provide them. Weir Minerals has developed its own IoT platform Synertrex™, which can be fitted to a Warman® pump to monitor its performance.

“The last eighty years of the Warman pump has given us a wealth of knowledge in how to operate a pump and efficiently transport slurry. Synertrex is going to be able to capture that wealth of knowledge and improve the product,” states Michael Hambe, Data Scientist for Weir Minerals. “The Synertrex platform allows us to collect and analyse data to predict the pump’s performance, and determine how efficiently it’s operating. This empowers our customers to run their pump at the optimal threshold of performance.”

Always Warman

Weir Minerals’ capability of coming up with superior materials technology and superior designs, underpinned by fantastic service and support to their customers, is what keeps them one step ahead of their competitors.

“In terms of Australian mining exports, the Warman pump is probably one of the greatest success stories. We will continue to innovate and make the Warman® pump even bigger and better,” Ricardo Garib concludes.

Following the anniversary event in Kalgoorlie, Weir Minerals has embarked on a six month celebration, sharing the history of Warman®, commemorating the generation of experts behind the brand, revealing key innovations behind the pump and telling the stories of the long standing pumps on sites around the world. Visit https://www.global.weir/industries/minerals/always-warman/ to find out more.

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Warman slurry pumps

If you had a big pile of powder or crushed ore and wanted to move it from one place to another you would most likely use a slurry pump. These pumps can transport ore that has been mixed with liquid to form a slurry.

In the early 1930s, Charles Warman was a young draftsman working at a gold mine in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia. He saw that some improvements in slurry pump technology were needed and set out to improve the designs.

By 1938 he had made several improvements to slurry pump design and had taken out patents on his ideas. He improved the seal so that it was simple and required little maintenance. He introduced a rubber lining which could be replaced easily. The pumps were manufactured and marketed from Kalgoorlie until 1955, when they accounted for about 90 per cent of the Western Australian market.

Charles continued to improve the pump design. His company released new generations of pumps in 1950 and 1962. In the late 1950s the company moved to Sydney and built a new factory at Atarmon. A factory opened in North America in the early 1960s and in 1969 the company was taken over by a large mining group.

At the end of the century, Warman International had its main office in Sydney along with its manufacturing, marketing and distribution facilities. Warman-designed pumps were being manufactured in the USA, UK and Brazil, and there were licensees in Japan, China, the Philippines and India. There was a sales office in nearly every country in the world!

Who Did It?
Key Organisations
Warman International ? Australia
Key People
Charles Warman

Further Reading
Jack Ames, ?The Essential Engineer: Mining?s great inventor looks to the future?, Sydney Morning Herald, 6 Sept 1988.

Links
Warman International - Australia
CH Warman Pump Group
Hicom International

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