Polish Bulk Materials Industry shows confidence in AUMUND Products

Peter Heberle, 1. December 2019

AUMUND Fördertechnik

Hopper discharge and crusher feeding with AUMUND Arched Plate Conveyors have a long and successful tradition in the Polish bulk materials industry. When suitable discharge systems are to be selected for applications in the cement, lime and gypsum industry, or in other key industries where bulk materials are conveyed, three principle criteria are considered: the properties of the material itself, the shape of the silo or hopper and the requirements of the process technology. In all three areas the AUMUND Arched Plate Conveyor type BPB in its various designs is rated as a technically excellent and cost-effective piece of equipment.

The industry contacts of AUMUND Fördertechnik in Poland go right back to the year 1978. At that time AUMUND supplied eight Arched Plate Conveyors for the Port of Świnoujście (Swinemünde) to extract coal from hoppers installed under the wagon tippler equipment. These Arched Plate Conveyors are still in operation today and running without any problems. Two further Arched Plate Conveyors were supplied in 2012, as the first to the cement industry, at Cementownia Rudniki, CEMEX Polska, near to the famous Polish pilgrim destination, Częstochowa/ Tschenstochau, for the extraction of clinker and natural gypsum from hoppers.

AUMUND Arched Plate Conveyors for Hopper Discharge
AUMUND was able to continue the success story of Arched Plate Conveyors in the Polish cement industry at Cementownia Warta, when its hopper system was modernised. In 2015 this company was the first in Poland to choose an AUMUND Arched Plate Conveyor type BPB for hopper discharge. Since the hopper modification, AUMUND conveying technology has not only facilitated the transportation of clinker, but more importantly of sticky raw materials such as natural gypsum, limestone and slag.

AUMUND Arched Plate Conveyors for Crusher Feeding
One year later AUMUND supplied a second Arched Plate Conveyor to Cementownia Warta. This one was of the type BPB-SF, SF denoting a specially reinforced heavy-duty design, to feed limestone to the crusher at a conveying capacity of 1,500 tph.

In 2017 the general contractor Budkrusz ordered a heavy-duty AUMUND Arched Plate Conveyor type BPB-SF for limestone, with a conveying capacity of up to 750 tph, on behalf of Transkom, a company located near Tarnow Opolski in Southern Poland, which operates quarries in that area. In 2018 a third heavy-duty AUMUND Arched Plate Conveyor with a conveying capacity of 1,000 tph of limestone was supplied to the mineral and lime producer Zaklady Wapiennicze Lhoist for its plant in Tarnow Opolski. At the beginning of September 2019, the official commissioning of the AUMUND conveyor took place on the occasion of the opening ceremony of the Lhoist’s Izbicko limestone quarry.

Applications and Design Variations
An integral part of the success strategy in all projects for AUMUND Fördertechnik is its technical advice and support to the customer, which starts at the very beginning of the planning stage and carries on through implementation to the commissioning of the new or upgraded equipment.

These examples of applications in the Polish bulk materials industry show the different uses of AUMUND Arched Plate Conveyors and how the technical design of the machine is adapted according to each alternative. The product type BPB is predominantly used for sticky raw materials such as gypsum, anhydrite, clay and clay-marl mix. The conveyor itself has an arched cross section and forms a rounded surface at the chain wheel in the discharge area. A cleaning scraper can be installed here in order to remove sticky material from the plates. A drive unit combined with a frequency converter allows the speed of the conveyor to be regulated, to achieve the conveying capacity at a defined velocity.

Heavy-duty Arched Plate Conveyors of the type BPB-SF are primarily arranged under tipping stations, for example where trucks unload, and convey un-crushed raw materials, such as limestone and natural gypsum with dimensions of up to 1,500 mm, to the crushing plant. The thickness of the plates, which themselves have a flat profile, depends on the particle sizes of the material, the throughput and the dimensions of the hopper funnel. To accommodate these requirements, thicknesses and widths of up to 3,000 mm are available. Accordingly the track chains have breaking loads of up to 2 x 4,200 kN.

The BPB-SF design features heavy-duty, fixed, slide-bearing rollers, as used in crawler undercarriages, which are arranged underneath the track chains. In addition, AUMUND Arched Plate Conveyors are supplied with a spillage conveyor to remove fines without the need for manual cleaning.