High performing cone crusher revolutionizes production in the UAE

UAE Company National Quarries LLC had a problem. Its existing crushing plant was doing satisfactory work, but the company's management felt performance was lacking. This led the company to approach Sandvik Construction Middle East which offered a modern solution using a CH660 cone crusher, which has delivered improved production leading to even more orders for Sandvik equipment.

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National Quarries LLC was founded in Siji, Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates in 2002. The company is today considered to be one of the leading aggregate suppliers in UAE with approximately 150 employees, and an annual production of 3.5-4 Million tons of high quality aggregate which is produced in a variety of sizes. The products produced are supplied to construction and readymix companies in the UAE and the surrounding area.

Good, but not good enough

In order to produce the large amount of accurately sized aggregates demanded by the local construction and readymix industries, National Quarries use a three stage crushing process. This consists of a 42x48 inch jaw crusher as a primary; a cone working as the secondary crusher, and two impact crushers operating in a tertiary capacity.

General Manager of National Quarries, Thair Aziz Muslem, who has been with the company since its foundation, commented: "We were quite happy with the performance of our old plant but I had the feeling we didn´t get the most out of it. The plant was producing well, but it was clear that the secondary cone was a bit of a bottle neck, but I could not dream about how big improvements that could be achieved by only changing one machine."

New solution proposed

In 2012 National Quarries started looking seriously into what could be done to improve its existing plant. This was taken to another level when Sandvik Construction in the Middle East was invited to take a look at the existing operation. "It was clear from the beginning that the Sandvik team had a very good technical knowledge and took the task very seriously. The way they approached the problem gave me confidence that they would recommend the most beneficial solution for National Quarries", says Mr. Muslem. "Since I am an engineer myself I like to understand the technical details, so it was easy to work with Ashwin Prajapati and the other team members from Sandvik. Ashwin and his colleagues looked at every aspect of the plant and tried to find out what could be done to upgrade the plant and get the most out of the invested money."

Sandvik PlantDesigner© used to find the optimal solution

In order to be able to propose the best solution possible for National Quarries, Sandvik was able to use a simulation tool that has been producing results for aggregates supplies across the world. "We used our PlantDesigner© tool together with the production figures we had from the existing machines to try to find the optimal solution in order to increase the capacity." Says Sandvik Middle East's Ashwin Prajapati.

"We checked different scenarios, changing different machines and our findings were quite interesting. It was correctly so that the secondary cone crusher was a bottle neck (as Mr. Muslem believed) in terms of capacity, but also the reduction ratio was quite poor which led to a coarse feed to the tertiary impactors and an unnecessary amount going in closed circuit over the impactors."

Using the PlantDesigner© simulation tool enabled Sandvik to propose a simple and cost effective solution. "We could see that by changing the secondary crusher to a Sandvik CH660, not only would increase the throughput in the secondary stage, but also the net production in the impactors would increase due to the decreased percentage going in closed circuit." Says Ashwin.

Delivering the promised results

In 2013 National Quarries replaced its existing cone crusher with the CH660, with PlantDesigner© being spot on as to the dramatically improved production. "The results have been amazing and our investment paid off much quicker than we thought possible. The total capacity of the plant has increased by 25%, which is great. Another positive result is the fact that the reduction ratio produced by the Sandvik machine is so much higher it has led to a lot of other benefits." Says Mr. Muslem.

"The output from the old cone crusher was around 0-75 mm, while with the CH660 we are able to reduce the output to 0-63 mm. This has led to a reduction of the close circuit on the tertiary impactors, resulting in increased life time of the wear parts in the impactors by 65%. We are also using 20% less fuel in our generators due to less power consumption. On top of that the 0-5 mm production, which is a less valuable product, has decreased about 5%. In this competitive market it has meant a lot for us to be able to reduce our operational costs." Mr. Muslem concludes.

CH660 leads to greater investment

In the beginning of 2015 it was time for National Quarries to invest in a new crushing plant, and due to the success of the CH660, Sandvik was the favored company to supply the new plant. During the evaluation process, the Sandvik and National Quarries teams worked closely together to find the right solution. In May 2015 National Quarries placed an order with Sandvik Middle East for one CJ615 jaw crusher, two CI532 impact crushers, one primary feeder and three product screens for its new crushing plant.