by Jon M. Casey
When shopping for new aggregate processing equipment, it is rare for buyers to have an opportunity to see what a new product can do in their own crushing and screening environment. Most of the time, prospective buyers have to travel to other operations that have installed the equipment under consideration to see how it operates. However, for quarries that are looking for a new, more efficient way to wash their aggregates, W.S. Tyler has come up with a portable test plant that features their Hydro-Clean™ high pressure, aggregate washing technology. So it was with eager anticipation that dozens of producers converged on two, mid-Atlantic area facilities in late May, when Kemper Equipment and W.S. Tyler hosted two demonstration days, one at Mason-Dixon Sand & Gravel in Port Deposit, MD on May 20, 2014 and the second on May 22 at an R.E. Pierson Asphalt Plant in Bridgeport, NJ.
NAQN was on hand for the Pierson demonstration, one that not only featured cleaning of material mined at the Pierson facility but also included material brought in from other producers’ quarries in the area as well. For attendees, the results were impressive.
Quarries look for clean rock and crushed stone for use in everything from asphalt and concrete mix designs to soils and decorative stone applications. Even the two host facilities, while geographically close, and whose business markets include the usual paving, concrete and site prep aggregate products, also included materials that, while in an unwashed condition, are barely marketable. In most cases, these materials require extensive cleaning to make them salable.
The W.S. Tyler Hydro-Clean demonstration attracted prospective users like Baer Aggregates, Inc., whose sand and gravel operation mines a product that, when thoroughly washed, becomes a premium decorative stone. Lou Mitschele, Baer’s owner and president, said that after washing the material in the Hydro-Clean, he could sell this product in bulk or bag at a higher profit level as compared to its initial, sand and clay-covered condition. When aggregates containing clay and other unwanted dirt and silt, can be washed and cleaned in one pass, the result is a more desirable product for numerous applications.
Richard E. Pierson, Jr., event host and president of Diamond Materials, Wilmington,DE, said he was interested in hosting this event because this quarry produces a considerable amount of stone used in septic and sewer applications. He wanted to observe how well the Hydro-Clean would do the job. Currently, he relies upon log washers to clean the material. He said the inherent wear and maintenance requirements of log washer systems, coupled with the volume of water required for the successful operation of a log washer system, made him curious to see how well the W.S. Tyler Hydro-Clean performed. Michael Nelson, Pierson’s Kemper Equipment territory manager, introduced him to the new technology, and Pierson said he saw the Hydro-Clean on display at CON/AGG-CONEXPO. Nelson’s suggestion of how the Hydro-Clean reduced water and maintenance requirements, sounded like a piece of equipment that demanded further consideration and Pierson wanted to know more about it.
“We wanted to see what a worse-case scenario might look like,” Pierson said. The day’s tests included tailings from a dirt-type material that they produce for athletic fields. It has the heaviest clay component of everything they produce.
“We also have some material that comes from another of our operations, down near Cape May. It is a stone and sand mix, material that we have already washed. We run into clay veins there and even after running it through a log washer, it still has clay that needs to be removed.” The test runs proved to be extremely helpful in removing the clay which gave Pierson something to consider.
W.S. Tyler Process Engineer, Michael Honea, said the Hydro-Clean uses 75 percent less water than other methods, while covering a smaller footprint. He said the Mobile Test Plant features the HC-350, a unit capable of about 20 tons per hour. While this unit is capable of handling material up to 2.5 inches, the two commercial sized units, the HC-1000 and the HC-2000, are both capable of handling 6-inch material. He said the HC-1000 can process up to 180 tons per hour while the HC-2000 process up to 360 tons per hour. In both cases, recycled water can be used with a 10-percent fresh water make-up as part of the mix.
Honea explained that the material goes into the Hydro-Clean washing drum where a rotary washing head, rotating at 100 RPM, begins the cleaning process with high pressure water. From there, material drops onto the discharge belt where it passes under seven spray nozzles. On the HC-1000, there are 32 spray nozzles. He said on the rinse screen, the water spray not only cleans the material, but the cleaning process is also aided by the tumbling effect of the material as it passes along the rinse screen. That makes for a quality final product.
For more information on the W.S. Tyler Hydro-Clean, visit their website at www.wstyler.ca.
