Displaying items by tag: Supplier

Pakistan: Askari Cement has awarded a contract to Germany-based Gebr. Pfeiffer for the supply of three of its MVR vertical roller mills to replace the existing mills at its Nizampur cement plant. Two of the mills will be MVR 5000 C-4 cement mills with the capacity to grind 360t/hr of clinker to a fineness of 3250 blaine. The other mill, an MVR 5000 R-4 raw meal mill, will grind 520t/hr of clinker to a fineness of 12% R90µm. The Chinese contractor Hefei Cement Research & Design Institute will install an SLS V high-efficiency classifier on each of the mills. The upgraded plant is scheduled for commissioning in mid-late 2022.

UK: Bunting has opened the Bunting-Redditch Customer Experience Centre at its Bunting-Redditch facility in Redditch, Worcestershire. The centre is equipped with high-intensity magnetic separators, eddy current separators and a revolutionary electrostatic separator. Bunting said that it will enable its engineers to work in partnership both remotely and at site.

General manager Adrian Coleman said “Having the ability to test and prove the separation capabilities of a specific machine is priceless. There is a constant flow of materials arriving to be tested and being returned. We are fortunate enough to have unique laboratory-scale technology that enables separations that are simply not possible in other test houses. Investing in our new Customer Experience Centre has already generated orders that previously we would not have secured.”

France: Lafarge France has awarded a contract to Germany-based Inform for the supply of its transport optimisation software across its 160 aggregates locations and 900-truck fleet. The software uses algorithms to analyse scheduling decisions in real-time and identify those that are ideal for minimising costs and maximising service and on-time performance.

Supply chain projects head Kevin Perrault said “We have been using Inform’s transport optimisation software for over 25 years in our aggregates business.” He added “We pride ourselves in delivering the best possible service to our customers, and upgrading our operations to the latest version is a key element to help us achieve our goals and to remain competitive in the industry.”

Holcim Schweiz hit a milestone recently with the aerial drone programme at its Siggenthal cement plant. The project with Voliro, a Switzerland-based technology start-up, has started to use multi-rotor drones to conduct official measurement flights. They used them to take measurements to determine the steel wall thicknesses of the cement kiln and the cyclone preheater. The work has been part of Holcim’s ‘Plants of Tomorrow’ industrial automation plan with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). Key features of the particular drones being used are that they can be rotated around all axes by a special rotor system and can even fly upside down.

Holcim has been using drones in and around cement plants for a few years now. When it launched the Plants of Tomorrow plan in 2019, Switzerland-based drone supplier Flyability said that the cement company had chosen its Elios 2 model to perform confined space inspection. Earlier in 2017 another supplier, SenseFly, said that LafargeHolcim Tanzania had been using its fixed-wing products. Holcim is also far from alone in its use of drones. A few examples among many include Cemex USA’s work with Kespry earlier in 2021, HeidelbergCement’s work in North America and Germany in 2020 and 2021 and Votorantim’s testing at its Córdoba and Niebla plants in Spain back in late 2015. 

UAV usage by armed forces dates back to examples like unmanned incendiary balloons being deployed in the 19^th century to Azerbaijan’s reported decisive use of drones in its war against Armenia in late 2020. The current era of industrial UAVs began after 2000 when governments starting issuing civilian permits, miniaturisation occurred and improvements in cameras, sensors and computing power followed. For the mineral processing sector the trend started with drones being used for stockpile management and quarry surveying. At present this is the main area that UAVs are used for by the sector, often coupled with photogrammetry techniques. CalPortland’s Adam Chapman’s paper at the 2021 IEEE-IAS/PCA Virtual Cement Conference described one company’s use of UAVs in the cement industry since 2016, looking at licensing, cost, quality of data, drone technology, fleet management and field experiences.

More recently though, tests of drones used to survey cement plant buildings and structures have started being publicised such as Holcim’s work at Siggenthal. A presentation by consultant John Kline and Chris Place of Exelon Clearsight summarised the use of drones for structural inspection at cement plants at the Global CemProducer 3 webinar in January 2021. The key benefits they promoted of using an UAV in this way were: improved safety because workers have reduced risk from climbing, working at height or in confined spaces; less time to conduct a survey; higher resolution photographs and video; better coverage through grid method surveying; and an overall lower cost. However, on that last point, other commentators have noted that market-leading drones for surveying are relatively expensive and easy to damage. Drones have since been used to start going inside structures at cement plants with Kline demonstrating their use to inspect the condition of refractory within the cooler, kiln, pre-heater and cyclone of a production line at the Global CemProducer 2 webinar in July 2020. HeidelbergCement has also been doing similar things, with an inspection trial using a drone of the kiln at the Schelklingen plant in Germany during the 2021 maintenance shutdown period at the site.

So far the use of drones by the cement industry has mostly been in a surveying or inspection capacity. Given the short time that UAVs have been used like this there is likely to be scope for lots more development both within existing fields and new ones as the sector works out how best the technology can be used. One application we couldn’t find in the research for this short article was the use of drones for security and surveillance tasks at cement plants and quarries although this may be happening already. However, there could be a more active role for drones if or when a company finds a way for them to start making basic repairs or carrying out simple maintenance in those hard to reach areas that drones excel at accessing. Research examples exist of UAVs being used to spray concrete or repair materials onto minor defects in concrete structures. Yet considerable challenges face these kinds of applications such as the weight of a loaded multi-rotor drone or damage from rebound. Before we all get too worried about drones replacing our jobs though it is worth considering that Amazon’s plan to deliver packages by UAV was first announced in 2013 and it still hasn’t happened yet. It may yet, but for now in most situations humans remain cheaper and more practical than robots or drones.

Finland: Metso Outotec has launched the Xtreme forged crusher head. The supplier says that this completes the portfolio for Nordberg MP800, MP1000, MP1250, HP800, and HP900 crushers. It is made of one-piece forged material, with geometrical features to assure consistent bearing loading within machine design parameters.

Crushing products senior vice president Chad Smallwood said “Metso Outotec now has a complete range of crusher heads in the portfolio and our customers can choose the level of durability based on their application and needs. The new Xtreme forged head is the most reliable crusher head in the industry. The original equipment manufacturer (OEM) design ensures optimal crushing even where equipment may be pushed beyond design limits.”

Denmark: FLSmidth has announced the reinstatement of its 2020 guidance. The guidance predicts full-year sales of Euro2.28bn, down by 18% year-on-year from Euro2.77bn. Earnings before taxation, interest, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) margin is expected to decline to 6.0% from 8.1%. The company said that the guidance is “subject to higher uncertainty than usual” and conditional upon “no further escalation of Covid-19, no further extensive lockdowns or travel restrictions occurring before year-end, a gradual improvement in business sentiment for the remainder of 2020, and business improvement implementation of around Euro28.2m, of which Euro18.8m relate to the previously communicated improvement activities and around Euro9.40m relate to further improvement activities in cement.” It added, “The cement industry has been severely impacted, and the timing and extent of a rebound remain uncertain. Our goal for the cement business is to generate more stable, higher-margin earnings.”

Turkey: Germany-based Körfez Engineering’s Körfez foundry in Dilovasi, Kocaeli Province, has announced that it is now exporting its cast steel products, including cement kilns, preheaters, clinker coolers and mills, to 70 countries spanning five continents. Exports account for 85% of sales. Foundry general manager Çağdaş Alan said, “We are proud to export to different geographies and to increase the number of countries we export to during this difficult period the world is going through. We hope to overcome this difficult period with the least loss for our business and the country.” He added, “We continue to invest in information technologies, develop our facilities in line with industry 4.0, and create a dynamic business environment with innovative trainings for continuous development of our expert staff.”

Germany: Vecoplan has said that it will host 360-Degree Days, an exclusive live presentation from its technology centre, from 27 - 29 May 2020. It says that the event is aimed at filling the void left by the cancellation of IFAT 2020, which would have covered waste and raw materials management, due to the coronavirus outbreak. Vecoplan said, “Participants will learn all about recycling and processing technology, subdivided into several topic areas. Details on the content will be announced closer to the time.”

Argentina: South Africa-based Pro-Op Industries has announced the shipment of a set of ceramic rotary valves produced by Germany-based Kreisel to Argentina. The product is to be installed at Loma Negra’s 1.5Mt/yr integrated Catamarca plant in Catamarca province. The rotary valves will replace two screw pumps with the aim of ‘substantially reducing energy consumption and maintenance costs’ at the plant. Pro-Op Industries said, ‘We are excited and honoured to be working with the Loma Negra team and to be introducing Kreisel technology to the South American region.’

Australia: Mideco’s Bat Booth 2.0 personnel de-dusting booth has given producers an edge in tackling the spread of coronavirus amongst employees by detecting a sign of infection, namely a raised temperature (over 37.8°C). A medically-calibrated infra-red sensor in the Bat Booth 2.0 takes the user’s temperature in under half a second, informing them of the need to isolate. Mideco says that the booth’s low-pressure compressed air dust removal feature further reduces the contamination risk from an infected person’s clothing. Mideco said, “At a higher level, senior management can track trends and monitor the wellbeing of their staff remotely.”