MDG America supplies chain bucket elevators to Drake Cement
Drake Cement, headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, has recently increased their cement production by adding a vertical mill grinding plant for cement, slag and raw material grinding. The plant, located in Paulden, Arizona, is designed for pre-mixing the material via hoppers, a feed system and discharge selection system. MDG America was selected to supply the plant with 4 high quality chain bucket elevators to feed the system. The bucket elevators will operate from 26 - 362 t/h of material.
The first set of elevators (Figures 1 and 2) consists of two connected bucket elevators that take feed material from the existing conveyor belts and, can either continue feed to existing grinding units, or divert feed to the new grinding plant. The conveyor belts will feed a diverter gate to the bucket elevator which feeds the hoppers.
The hopper discharge feeders send the mill feed material to the third bucket elevator which will feed the vertical roller mill (VRM) for grinding. The bucket elevator handles the mix of materials. After the VRM, the material is either air swept as a product out of the classifier, or the oversized material will be discharged to the VRM discharge chamber. The fourth bucket elevator will then collect the material and return the material for further grinding and metal discharge.
The chain mounted buckets are driven via the top rotor and drive unit, while the bottom rotor is adjusted and tensioned to ensure the units operate efficiently and remain in alignment.
