Warman slurry pumps
1938
better pump to move a mixture of ore and water
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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