Case History 5

Major U.S. Brick Maker

USA

Casing Diameter: 3 inches
Elevation: 9 feet
Rate per hour: 2 tons
Material: Sand
Special Features: Recovers and reuses overspill product

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

Olds Elevator LLC recently helped a major U.S. brick maker solve a chronic sand handling problem at 2 plants.

In the process of making bricks sand is often applied to the exterior of the brick clay before firing in the kiln. The sand is added to provide different colors and textures to brick to meet the various demands of the marketplace.

The process of adding sand involves elevating sand above the conveying line that carries freshly extruded brick clay and depositing the sand on to the top and sides of the extruded clay. In order to ensure complete coverage a significant percentage of the sand is overspill. For some brick runs the amount of overspill sand is more than the amount of sand actually applied to the brick. At many plants this overspill is not recoverable for reuse and is therefore wasted.

Working with the customer's Project Manager, Olds Elevator designed an elevator that would deliver sand from a hopper below the brick line to a discharge point above the brick conveying line. A chute extension of the Olds elevator feed hopper reaches under the brick line to capture 100% of the overspill sand and return it, by gravity to the feed hopper for reuse.

The customer's maintenance team built and fitted the hopper to mate with the Olds elevator. A Variable Frequency Drive is used to control the flow rate of sand to the brick line. The production manager is so satisfied that he stated that the addition of the Olds elevator was the best improvement to the brick making line he has seen in 27 years at the plant.

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