Asphalt Production and Liquids Essentials

By AsphaltPro Staff

AsphaltPro finishes the calendar year with a product gallery focused on the AC, aggregate, design and production portion of our industry.

Lined With Proof
From KPI-JCI/Astec Mobile Screens

As general manager of Rocky Mountain Materials and Asphalt in Colorado Springs, Colorado, Tom Smith has been instrumental in growing the excavation company into a highly successful business that employs up to 400 employees during its busiest season and produces up to two million tons of aggregate each year from its five operating quarries. Eric Smallwood of Power Motive Corporation saw a way Smith could enhance rising production with the new S-Series cone liners for his KPI-JCI and Astec Mobile Screens Kodiak® cone crushers. The S-Series cone liners and jaw dies from KPI-JCI and Astec Mobile Screens were developed by Astec Industries foundry experts who specialize in both metallurgy and manufacturing engineering.

“When we started upgrading our plants, we…not only wanted new technology, but we wanted machines that were going to last, machines that were going to run every day and machines that we could work on and that would be supported by our dealer,” Smith said.

Until 2013, Power Motive Corporation only offered cone liners that did not always prove price-competitive with other industry-leading brands. As a result, Rocky Mountain Materials and Asphalt used third-party liners on its Kodiak cones. With the introduction of the S-Series parts, Power Motive offered a price-competitive, high-performance product that was backed by the OEM. For Smith, it came down to demonstrable numbers. He challenged Smallwood to prove that the S-Series cone liners were more cost-effective and efficient.

Smallwood purchased a belt scale and positioned it on the discharge belt of the cone crusher. The scale not only accounted for virgin feed material coming in, but also the recirculating load material. This provided true daily data of tonnage produced. The liners were also weighed prior to initial use and upon removal to determine efficacy of wear life. If a cone liner weighs 50 percent or less than its starting weight, it’s considered fully exhausted from use.

Of course, to make a truly accurate comparison, Rocky Mountain Materials had to monitor not only the performance of the S-Series cone liners, but also the performance of competitive products. To come up with a complete comparison, the company also recorded data for RimTec and AmCast liners, and compared tonnage produced, wear life and price of the three brands.

The data revealed that over the testing period, the set of RimTec liners produced 176,000 tons, while the set of AmCast liners produced 175,000 tons. The set of S-Series cone liners produced 208,000 tons, or a 16 percent increase over its competitors. Additionally, the S-Series cone liners outweighed the competitors by up to 500 pounds and was the only brand to achieve 100 percent wear life consumption, offering the best cost-per-pound of manganese.

With three to four annual liner changes for each of his three cone crushers, Smith calculates that the switch to S-Series saves him approximately $30,000 each year.

“When you calculate it out to tons per hour and consider the fact that there are fewer liner changes, it proves to be a more efficient product,” Smith said. “For us, it’s a savings on labor and downtime. It keeps the plant running more, which equals more production. These numbers give us confidence in our decision to switch to the S-Series cone liners—by using the belt scale, you can’t get more accurate numbers than this.”

“Sixteen percent is a lot of savings,” Smallwood added. “At 3 or 4 percent, maybe it’s not worth changing for, but at 10 or 15 percent, you’ve really got to look hard at it and see if what you’re using is really the best on the market.”

ADM RECYCLES
Asphalt Drum Mixers, Huntertown, Indiana, offers four models of portable and stationary recycle systems to enhance the cost-efficiency of asphalt plants. ADM’s recycle bins feature a 15-ton capacity and are continuously welded at the seams. The bins contain angle irons and midsection stiffeners for reinforcement; their steeply sloped sidewalls are designed to prevent material from plugging or bridging. The discharge opening leads to the direct-drive belt feeder with a 5-horsepower motor, multi-ply belt, self-cleaning tail pulley and adjustable skirt boards.
•    Use this to make mix.
•    For more information, contact ADM at (260) 637-5729 or sales@admasphaltplants.com.

ERIEZ MONITORS LOAD
Producers can now order the FS Magnet Load Monitor through the EriezXpress® Program by Eriez, headquartered in Erie, Pennsylvania. The monitor is designed to improve the performance of suspended electromagnets (SEs) through continuous patrol of the magnetic field of SEs for accumulation of ferrous contamination. The build-up reduces separation efficiency. The monitor then performs functions according to what the producer/user has set it up to perform. For example, it can produce a signal alerting the facility operator that there is sufficient build-up to stop processing. It is possible to adjust the sensitivity so the monitor performs the stop, or the monitor can divert the material when a set amount of build-up is experienced.
•    Use this in recycling.
•    For more information, contact Eriez at (888) 300-3743 or eriez@eriez.com.

HONEYWELL PROTECTS EYES
Fogged lenses are a leading challenge workers face with safety eyewear; the lenses fog even faster in goggles and sealed eyewear due to restricted airflow. This affects productivity, but more importantly, it affects worker safety. When workers remove eyewear to wipe lenses clean, they are vulnerable to injury from the various hazards around them.

Honeywell of Smithfield, Rhode Island, launched Uvex Livewire™ sealed safety eyewear with Uvex HydroShield™ anti-fog lens coating mid-September. The new Livewire offering is designed for workers who require added protection of a goggle with fog-free visibility on the job. By pairing Livewire with Uvex HydroShield, workers avoid lens fogging for more than 60 times longer than standard Uvex anti-fog coating, according to the manufacturer. HydroShield is permanently bonded to the lens and designed not to wear off after extended wear or repeated cleanings.
•    Use this in work site safety.
•    For more information, contact the Honeywell Safety Products customer care department at (800) 430-5490 or visit www.uvex.us.

IROCK TRACKS IMPACT
IROCK Crushers, Valley View, Ohio, introduced the new TC-20 track impact crusher with a long feeder and four-bar impactor to produce a cubical product. The unit is designed to process soft to medium rock, recycled concrete and recycled asphalt. The rotor measures 40 inches by 56 inches, and processes a variety of materials up to 24 inches in diameter. It features a fixed, Hardox® hopper with a 15-cubic-yard capacity. It is paired with a 52-inch by 16-foot vibrating grizzly feeder, which has ¾-inch liners on the pan and side walls. It features a standard crusher bypass chute to reduce unnecessary wear on the crusher. With this chute, fines that fall through the grizzly feeder can either bypass the crusher and mix back in with the crushed material or be removed via the dirt conveyor with an adjustment to the flop gate. The TC-20 also incorporates IROCK’s ROCK BOX shelf system that allows crushed material to build up and act as a wear liner. The 48-inch-wide liner discharge conveyor can stockpile from as high as 10 feet, 11 inches. Operators can hydraulically lower or raise the conveyor to adjust drop heights. The TC-20 has 20-inch track pads for moving the crusher around a job site or onto a trailer for transportation to other locations. The unit comes standard with a wireless remote control for full plant operation, with two tracking speeds as standard.
•    Use this for recycling/crushing.
•    For more information, contact IROCK at (866) 240-0201 or sales@irockcrushers.com.

NEAL STORES THE SEAL
Neal Manufacturing, a division of Blastcrete Equipment, Anniston, Alabama, offers long-term storage solutions for as much as 10,000 gallons of coal tar and asphalt emulsion with its skid-mounted sealer mixer tanks. Neal storage tanks are formed with I-beam or channel steel skids. For extra support, the company manufactures the tanks with corner braces to keep them securely fastened on the skids. The tanks’ agitators are manufactured with a solid steel shaft, which enables the unit to mix thicker materials and break up settled product. With the unit’s offset agitation, two of the three blades are submerged in the material at all times. In addition, Neal uses a 100-tooth sprocket to propel the agitation. A Ranger™ gear pump transfers materials out of the tank and into sealcoating equipment. The unit is equipped with an 18-horsepower Kohler Command gasoline engine, which can be replaced with an electric motor for indoor storage tanks near a power source.
•    Use this at the tank farm.
•    For more information, contact Neal Manufacturing at (770) 830-1282 or eric@nealequip.com.