Elevating service life
The modernisation of Lafarge’s Wössingen plant in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, included improvements on the existing belt bucket elevator to the raw mill. The intralogistics specialist Beumer was awarded a contract to supply its heavy-duty bucket elevators which offer increased conveying capacity and longer service life. Thanks to this new technology, the existing bucket elevator could be easily altered. German-based Beumer Group takes us through the project.
Lafarge’s Wössingen plant, Baden-Württemberg, Germany
The preheater tower of the Lafarge Wössingen plant looms just a few hundred metres before the Wössingen sign, near Karlsruhe. The cement works was acquired by the French producer in the 1970s and forms part of the group’s worldwide portfolio. Lafarge is market leader in a number of countries including France, UK, Poland, Greece and Austria. In Germany, it is among the top six cement manufacturers.
Today, the Wössingen cement plant has a five-stage preheater and a new clinker cooler and, as with its global operations, Lafarge has placed particular emphasis on employing production techniques that are both energy efficient and environmentally sound.
“Thanks to state-of-the-art technology and a high sense of responsibility, we produce approximately 800,000tpa of cement for various applications and requirements at our Wössingen site,” explains Stephan Schenk, head of servicing and development at Lafarge Zement Wössingen GmbH.
“We changed from the Lepol process to the energy-saving dry-process with a preheater and precalciner without interruption to the operation. To make the production more cost effective and environmentally sound, we changed from the two-kiln operation to a single rotary kiln,“ Mr Schenk states. “The kiln line has now a considerably higher capacity. The system is fed with around 150tph of raw material. Accordingly, the complete production has changed,” the engineer continues.
Due to the increase in performance and modernisation of the kiln line, the flow rate of the bucket elevator for the raw mill had to be considerably upgraded. The bucket elevator transports limestone to the mill bunker.
