Canada’s “Rock to Road” Magazine

March/April 2005 Issue

• New HMA plant meets growing demand in Alberta capital
• World of Concrete celebrates 30 years
• Belt turnover system improves safety at Montreal quarry
  

For a copy of the issue that contains these articles with colour photos, click here.

New HMA plant meets growing demand in Alberta capital

By Robert L. Consedine, Editor

   The installation of an environmentally-compliant high output asphalt plant in Edmonton is giving Lafarge Canada the capability to supply premium quality HMA mixes for both large-scale highway projects as well as small-run jobs with equal ease. Set-up on 112 Ave. in the city’s west end, the new 363 tonnes/h capacity Astec Double Barrel plant was commissioned in early May 2004. It replaced a 30-year old 4500-kg batch plant that had worked well until it was no longer able to meet the hourly tonnage required by the company to supply the rapidly expanding Edmonton market. The boom in urban development and expressway construction during the past several years has provided a steady growth market for hot mix asphalt. In its search for an equipment upgrade, Lafarge Canada concentrated on finding a state-of-the-art HMA plant that would combine the high production capability of a drum-mix plant with the multiple-mix design versatility of a batch plant to better serve their diverse customer base. Additional important criteria were that the plant meet all municipal and provincial clean-air regulations while being neighbourhood-friendly. Although the property is in an industrial area, the area is surrounded by residential housing.
    “A significant number of our customers handle driveway work and smaller, local paving jobs while our larger customers are requiring ever increasing volumes of asphalt on a daily basis for street and highway paving contracts,” states Pat Whalen, general manager, Asphalt, of Lafarge Canada’s Greater Edmonton Division. “This plant can maintain our grocery-store business while supplying premium mixes to our customers as well as our internal paving crews with less truck waiting times.”
    The new plant is one of four stationary and portable HMA plants operated by the division. It serves the western half of Edmonton along with the communities of St. Alberta and Spruce Grove.
   The purchase of the new plant was initiated by the previous manager of the division, James Elko, who recognized the serious limitations of the old batch plant not only on the production side but also in rising labour and maintenance costs. Elko, who is now manager of Lafarge-owned Wells Construction Ltd., and Wayne Romanko, asphalt plant superintendent, conducted an in-depth analysis of the various asphalt plants on the market based on their specific criteria. They also visited a number of HMA plants in Canada and the United States before deciding on the relocatable Astec Double Barrel plant.
   The main components of the plant include a 6-bin cold feeder, a 2-bin RAP recycle system, a 762 mm x 3 m incline belt, a 762 mm x 24.4 m feed conveyor, a 5x12 double-deck screen for removing oversize aggregate and RAP, a 100,000 BTU Phoenix low-emission and low-noise burner, an 8x40 Double Barrel mixer and an Astec baghouse with horizontal cyclone. The burner is also designed to run on both natural gas and waste fuels which should provide Lafarge Canada with some future energy savings.
   A key feature of the plant is the 816-tonne Astec New Generation Storage System that consists of three 272-tonne heated storage silos – believed to be the largest in Edmonton. The goal of the company was to ensure uninterrupted service for its customers as well as to satisfy the demand for many different mixes. The system can store HMA for as long as five days with a quality guarantee.
   The scale is custom designed and built to Lafarge Canada’s specs. It is fully computerized and has two loading points.
   In addition, the plant has a 4.54 million litre capacity A/C storage tank with three 70,000 litre capacity A/C day tanks.
   To manage the operation, Lafarge Canada equipped the plant with an Astec TC2000 programmable logic control system which brings all of the plant’s functions, including the blending of all mix materials, onto a computer screen to ensure the accuracy and consistency of the mix.
   The plant can handle 50 per cent RAP mixes although the City of Edmonton currently limits its HMA mixes to a maximum 25 per cent RAP. The plant is producing 6 different mixes on a regular basis and has the capability to produce up to 30 if required. All production goes into the storage silos at 160 to 165 degrees Celsius.
“The mix designs are becoming more complex to meet end product specs. The trend is towards design, build and maintain contracts with a 30-year pavement life cycle. Our new plant can meet all existing mix designs including the new mixes for stone mastic and Superpave pavements,” states Romanko.
   Teardown and removal of the old batch plant began in early January 2004 and was successfully completed over a ten-day span. This work was followed by a site clean up operation. Both of these phases were handled by the plant crew under the direction of plant superintendent Romanko. Foundations for the new plant were started on March 1st with North American Construction driving the steel piles for the storage silos and the scalehouse. The rest of the plant sits on concrete pads.
   The first load shipped to the site from Astec’s Chattanooga, Tenn. factory consisted of the three silos and arrived on March 15th. Lafarge waited until all of the components for the new plant were on site before the assembly operation commenced. By April 7th, the plant was standing. According to Romanko, the new plant was a dream to set up. Everything, including the electrical system and piping came together easily and without any problems. Lafarge Canada was responsible for the equipment installation with Astec factory service technicians coming in for the latter part of the electrical work and fine tuning and to assist with start-up.
   Pat Whalen credits the manufacturer with helping to make the transition from the batch plant to the drum plant very smooth and trouble-free. ”There is a high level of support available from Astec on a continuous basis. If troubleshooting becomes necessary, the entire operation of plant can be remotely controlled from the factory in Chattanooga,” adds Romanko.
   Calibration of the new plant began on May 13th with the first trial batch of asphalt produced for the City of Edmonton on May 20th. Within three or four days of start-up, the plant was producing at full capacity of 4700 tonnes of spec material a day. The output in its first month was 56 000 tonnes.
    Overall, Whalen says the crew has adapted very well to the new plant and the company has received some very positive comments from its customers about quality of the mixes.
   The largest single supply contract for the plant in 2004 was 60 000 tonnes of 25 mm base and 12.5 mm surface mixes for the Yellowhead Trail and 184th St. interchange project.

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World of Concrete celebrates 30 years

By Robert L. Consedine, Editor

     More than 73,000 construction professionals from over 111 countries travelled to Las Vegas January 17-21 for the 30th anniversary of the World of Concrete. This year’s show, held at the Las Vegas Convention Center, recorded the second largest number of visitors and exhibitors (1,597) in the history of World of Concrete. According to show officials, the exhibitors, including more than 330 companies who exhibited for the first time, used a record total of 65 000 m2 of indoor and outdoor floor space to showcase thousands of new and current product offerings for the concrete and masonry industries. “We are extremely pleased with exhibitor participation and attendance this year,” stated Tom Cindric, show director. “Our reputation continues as the place for the newest products and our increase in exhibit space and attendance is a direct result of this. Our show continues to draw a focused group of attendees that no other show attract.”
     Some 90 construction education seminars, covering a range of topics from Concrete Basics to Decorative Concrete as well as Best Management Practices, were held throughout the five-day exhibition. Certificates were awarded to participants attending four program seminars in a specific subject track.
     The bleachers at the popular Mega Demos were packed as visitors watched a variety of technologically-advanced concrete machinery and forming systems being put to the test by expert crews. Meanwhile, in the outdoor areas across the road from the convention center, live demonstrations of ride-on trowels, concrete saws, concrete pumps, hammer drills and a host of other power tools drew big crowds in the bright sunshine.
     Organized Hanley Woods Exhibitions, WOC is an annual event that will return to the Las Vegas Convention Center January 17-20, 2006.

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Belt turnover system improves safety at Montreal quarry

By Robert L. Consedine, Editor

    A European-designed conveyor belt turnover device is helping a Montreal quarry significantly reduce maintenance costs while providing a safer work environment for its employees.
    Lafarge Canada Inc.’s Montreal East quarry is using the non-mechanical system on three of its conveyors to virtually eliminate carryback spillage under the return idlers.
    Designed and manufactured in France by S.A.R.L. R. Brunone and marketed through its Montreal-based Canadian subsidiary, R. Brunone Canada Inc., the patented SPAR 3 system features a unique U-shaped polymer guide that reverses the belt to keep the dirt-laden side of the belt facing upwards on its return journey. Other benefits include increased equipment service life for rollers and belts due to the cleaner operating conditions. Improved traction and tracking of the belt on the drive pulley is also improved because the driving side of the belt is protected from rain and wet materials. According to the manufacturer, a SPAR 3 belt turning device for a 610 mm to 1220 mm (24-in to 48-in) wide conveyor can be installed and operational in less than a day for under $5 000.00. The minimum length of the conveyor for the system to function properly is 36.6 m. The device can be fitted to most standard conveyors without any special modifications. Since it was introduced in the early 1990s, nearly 4000 of the SPAR 3 devices have been installed in aggregate operations throughout Europe.
    The Montreal East quarry became the first Canadian operation to install a SPAR 3 device when Benoit Levesque, production supervisor for Lafarge Canada’s 14 quarries in southern Quebec, imported the technology for the 1220 mm x 335 m long primary crusher field conveyor (C-7) in April 2003. The second device was installed in November 2003 on conveyor C-8, a 1220 mm x 396 m long field belt used to transport primary products from C-7 to the 30 000-tonne live surge pile. The third Spar 3 device was installed in June 2004 on C-10, a 1220 mm x 152 m long belt located in the reclaim tunnel under the surge pile. The length of the tunnel conveyor was extended in order to locate the tail pulley outside the tunnel entrance for safer clean up.
    According to Montreal East quarry manager, Michel Veronneau, the devices have worked continuously without any mechanical or operational problems at the 1 million tonne/y limestone operation. While the return on the investment in the SPAR 3 devices has been excellent, he points out the real payback for the belt turnover devices is best measured in terms of safety. For example, he says the latest device in the reclaim tunnel has removed the need for a worker to enter the tunnel daily for at least 30 minutes to clean up spills. “Putting a worker in this confined area every day was an accident waiting to happen,” he states.
   Veronneau told Aggregates & Roabuilding Magazine during a recent site visit that the quarry used to spend roughly five hours per shift to clean up carryback spillage between the head and tail pulleys of the two field conveyors and in the reclaim tunnel. Not only was this time consuming and dangerous work for the ground personnel, it also caused production delays whenever the small excavator used in the clean up hit a conveyor and misaligned the belt. Now, the clean up is concentrated mostly to the area around the tail pulleys on the two long field conveyors and is accomplished by a single worker a matter of minutes. The Montreal East quarry operates 16 hours a day from April to late November or early December, depending on the weather. It is the only active quarry on the Island of Montreal.
  The SPAR 3 belt turnover system is one of a range of SPAR (Safety Protection Around Rollers) products manufactured by S.A.R.L. R. Brunone for belt conveyor safety and dust control. In addition to the SPAR 3 belt turnover device, the Montreal East quarry has installed a number of these products including SPAR 1 that provides closed protection of idlers to prevent a worker’s hand from being caught between the belt and the idler. Another Brunone product installed at the same time as the first Spar 3 in April 2003 was a dust control system called Transpar that prevents airborne particles from escaping around a transfer point. Two Transpar units have been ordered by Benoit Levesque for spring installation at Lafarge Canada’s St. Constant quarry south of Montreal while two SPAR 3 belt turnover devices will also be installed this spring at the company’s St. Gabriel quarry, 100 km northeast of Montreal.
   For more information, email: pst-amant@rbrunone.ca

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March/April 2005 issue

Aggregates and Roadbuilding Magazine
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