Aumund refurbish world's tallest bucket elevator

12 April 2022

ACC Cement Ltd (Holcim Group) has commissioned the refurbishment of the world's tallest belt bucket elevator, which is 175.3m high. The elevator supplied by Aumund Engineering Pvt Ltd, Chennai, India, is installed at Wadi cement plant, one of the largest and most modern cement plants in India, for raw meal preheater transport at a continuous rate of 600tph.

While the bucket elevator at Wadi Cement, Karnataka state, remained in service, a detailed inspection revealed complete overhauling would soon be required and the company decided to invite bids for the supply and supervision of installation of the necessary components on a time-bound schedule preventative maintenance. After due deliberation and looking at performance of various elevators operating at the plant, parent company Holcim decided to award the contract to Aumund.

Originally, the machine was fitted with a steel cord belt of width 1320mm and tension rating of 3150N/mm. After passing the application data through sophisticated computerised selection programme, Aumund decided to offer an alternative based on its own design concept resulting in a belt width of 1300mm but with higher tension rating of 4000N/mm with a bucket size of 1250 mm at bucket spacing of 450mm.

In addition to the new belt, the elevator will be fitted with new drive pulley including friction linings and rubber bucket mounting strips. The casings, inlet and outlet plus the complete drive unit remain unchanged.