Weir Minerals has delivered a custom designed plant that has boosted production and increased the product range at a sand and aggregates miner in Iowa, US.
Family-owned Pattison Sand produces a diverse range of products, servicing several industries including infrastructure and construction.
Weir said: “After successfully using a number of Weir Minerals products at their site, Pattison Sand wanted a custom designed plant capable of producing more than seven materials: concrete stone, road rock and base material, asphalt stone, asphalt chips, railroad ballast and manufactured sand. This was a challenging demand considering most aggregates sites in the region typically focus on producing only a few products.”
Eric Jones, Global Service Director of Comminution Aftermarket for Weir Minerals, said when Pattison Sand presented the plan for their sand plant, the company’s integrated solutions team “worked with them to make it a reality”.
The facility, comprising both an underground and open-pit mine, is located on the Mississippi River. It processes highly abrasive materials and, combined with the physical diversity of the site, presented a number of technical and engineering challenges to Weir. On top of this, the company had three months to deliver and commission the plant.
Chance Harvey, Director of Engineering at Pattison Sand, said: “We develop these solutions with Weir Minerals through a lot of trials, successes and failures, and end up getting the results that we need to continue to survive in the marketplace.
“A lot of the options that other equipment manufacturers supply are standard and by the book. Weir Minerals has the ability to work with us to create solutions for our individual issues.”
The site has a unique rail loadout setup where product is dispatched to customers as soon as gradation and quality data is approved. This meant Pattison Sand needed an efficient, dependable plant to meet stringent delivery requirements.
Weir Minerals supplied a number of products to create two primary and secondary crushing stations at the operation. These included a Trio® TF5220 vibrating grizzly feeder, two Trio EF3603 pan feeders and two Trio TP450 cone crushers. Trio scalping, incline and wet incline screens, as well as a Trio TSW4432 fine material washer, were also supplied.
Full training and support was provided, with Weir Minerals regularly on site to help Pattison Sand optimise their entire process and achieve the desired result, Weir said.
It continued: “The flexibility of the custom built plant has allowed Pattison Sand to operate more efficiently, exceed production target and increase their product range.”
Since commissioning the plant, Pattison Sand has been able to produce 500-800 t/H of high-quality aggregate material, which equates to around 2.5 Mt/y of raw product. Four hoppers provide a loadout rate of 500 t/h enabling Pattison Sand to produce a diverse range of products and still meet demanding customer delivery schedules, Weir said.
Jones said: “When customers purchase Trio products they are buying years of experience from people within an organisation that is dedicated to the industry and its customers. We constantly strive to be closer to our customers. It’s not always perfect, but we work through projects together and are honest with each other. It’s that transparency and working with customers like Pattison Sand which really drives the end solution.”