Blending Beds for Different Bulk Goods

August 26, 2014

4 Min Read
Blending Beds for Different Bulk Goods
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In many industrial processes (i.e. the cement industry) the regularity of the raw materials used plays an important role in the manufacture of products. This uniform consistency is ensured through blending beds located within the storage yard. As a system supplier, BEUMER Group develops stackers and bridge scrapers, the essential components of blending beds that stack bulk material and guarantee a maximum blending effect. Thus, operators can homogenize large quantities of various bulk materials dependably and efficiently. BEUMER employees can perform the complete engineering of the blending bed systems.
      Be it houses, bridges, or tunnels, cement is the material that holds everything together. However, a bag of this material has already come a long way before it arrives at the building site. When the component raw materials are mined and transformed into cement at the cement plant, they pass through many different stages. The most important raw materials for cement production are limestone, clay, and marl. Workers break them out of quarries or extract them with heavy tools. Wheel loaders and dump trucks transport the raw materials to the crushing facilities. There, the rocks are crushed to the approximate size of road gravel. These rocks then arrive at the cement works via miles long belt conveyors.
      A consistent quality must be ensured so that the producers can further process the material to high-quality cement; fluctuations in the material characteristics must not occur. Therefore, a belt conveyor transports the individual raw materials to the blending beds. These storage location systems mix and homogenize the raw materials.

Experts at Work
For almost 80 years, BEUMER has been developing tailor-made system solutions in conveying technology for the stone and quarry industry, power plant industry, and mining (ores and coal), as well as the logistics industry (harbors and transshipment terminals). Furthermore, the specialists have comprehensive expertise in engineering of blending beds and stockpiles. Through structural analysis of the associated storage depots and calculation of dimensions, the company is able to provide a design. The blending beds are customized according to their requirements. BEUMER proposes either longitudinal or circular stockpile designs. The recommended design shape results from the spatial conditions and the amount of the material to be stored. Depending on the field of application, these blending beds can be used at extreme ambient temperatures, for high entry conveying capacities, as well as for the highest degree of homogenization required. Additionally, the company provides material-specific detailed solutions with robust and low-wear equipment. The environmental impacts are also low as minimal noise and dust occurs during operation. Blending beds can be set up both outdoors and indoors.

Compiled and Extracted in Layers
The stacker and the bridge scraper are the basis for a blending bed. If they are perfectly designed, the user will obtain an optimum blending effect. In the end, the stockpile has been raised in a way that its cross-section shows as many layers of equal material as possible. The stackers can be of fixed or mobile types, depending on the requirement.   In case of circular stockpiles the stackers are mounted onto a column and with a longitudinal blending bed, they are mounted on rails. The stackers are designed as fixed, raisable, and pivotable booms with conveying capacities of up to 4000 tn/hr. The choice of the right system depends on different factors, as for example, the shape and size of the stockpile, the material, the throughput, and the desired mobility.
      Lastly, the bridge scraper homogenizes the material. It has a mobile rake on each side. The material is removed in layers by stroking the face of the stockpile with the rake. The scraper blades move the bulk material towards the belt conveyor that runs parallel to the stockpile. The bridge scrapers are not only robust, but they also transport the bulk material so that the product is handled gently. This makes them suitable for a variety of bulk materials. Their continuous and comparably simple working motions allow for a fully automated operation and ensure a constant and steady flow of the bulk material.
      BEUMER Group is an international manufacturing leader in intralogistics in the fields of conveying, loading, palletizing, packaging, sortation, and distribution technology. For more information, visit www.beumergroup.com.

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