by Colleen Suo

There were a plethora of media events and press conferences at the 2017 edition of CONEXPO/CON-AGG held March 7-11 at the Las Vegas Conference Center. One such event was Wednesday morning at the massive (20,000 plus square-foot) McCloskey International display area in the Silver lot.

Julie Andras, International Marketing and Communications manager, introduced Sean Loughran who is director of the newly established McCloskey Washing Systems (MWS) division, which was officially announced in a November 1, 2016 press release.

Loughran gave us a brief overview of the genesis of MWS before a walk around tour of the new Sandstorm 620 modular washing plant on display in the Silver lot. Within the first two months of creation, there was a team of six to seven engineers working purely on the washing systems and within 12 months, they had six new machines in production.

Loughran explained that MWS was able to accomplish this due to the position of McCloskey being privately owned and operated as opposed to having to operate within “corporate shackles” which may hinder a fast paced development program.

Sandstorm® modular wash plants range from the Sandstorm 516 to the Sandstorm 824, with the Sandstorm 620 (6×20 double or triple deck rinse screen) being the mid-size plant.

“Breaking the mold of the traditional wash plant on the market, the Sandstorm 620 is a truly modular system that is shipped in six 40-foot shipping containers.” he continued.  McCloskey fully assembles each unit at the factory, tests it for quality control, dismantles it and then packs it into the containers to ship worldwide to their customers.

The machines are produced in the new state of the art manufacturing facility in Co. Tyrone in Northern Ireland.

Our walk around tour of the wash plant was lead by Craig N. Rautiola, manager-Technical Sales & Applications, North America / Process Engineer. He began by stating that “McCloskey International has been very successful in track mounted crushers, conveying and screening and now with the washing line they are providing modular wash system options.”

Rautiola mentioned due to the nature of the modular design, the plants could be either stationary or portable, but the “portability of the Sandstorm style wash plant is (in) the quick ability for it to be broken down, dismounted in sections and placed into new application.” It is not a mobile unit.

When asked a question regarding transport within an operation, he explained that this particular model went from transport containers to display mode (not plumbed) in four days. If taking the plumb and electrical work into account, he estimated about seven days including disassembly and re-assembly. Adding that in addition to the Sandstorm modular plants, “McCloskey Washing Systems also have track mounted wash screens and skid mounted sand plants for use in fully mobile washing applications.”

Each Sandstorm plant will be customized at manufacture to the intended application. Rautiola explained that the display unit onsite was “set up for a single sand application and was purchased by an outfit in Chicago for use in making concrete sand to spec from a limestone quarry feed.”

The Sandstorm 620 includes a 16-cubic-yard feed hopper for use with a large capacity loader or excavator. It can also be used in a closed circuit system fed via conveyor. Rautiola went on to say that the Grizzly bar tipping grid and the belt feeder are hydraulically controlled, but “everything else about the plant is electrically operated.”

Rautiola pointed out the patented rollaway pump feature mounted to the frame beneath the screen box. “A simple disconnect of the breakaway beam allows the entire pump unit to be rolled out, after (disconnecting) the suction and discharge lines” to give quick safe access for maintenance. He went on to say, “The Sandstorm Wash Plant is a simple yet sophisticated plant, designed with the plant operator in mind.”

Some of the other standard features include:

• A main conveyor with 41-inch belt width with an 18 degree angle, with a high quality polyurethane scraper and galvanized undercarriage; also available with an overband magnet option;
• The rinser screen box is 20 x 6-foot and is customized with either two or three decks of urethane media suited to the intended application and is set at an 18 degree optimum working angle;
• Isolated spray bars are stationary and independent of the screen.
• Integrated fully sealed subframe and catch box;
• The main tank has large inspection door(s) for easy access and maintenance.
• Thirty inch wide galvanized walkways; and
Rubber lined hydrocyclone delivery system.

MWS uses not only appropriately sized cyclones for every application but will also determine how many to use as part of their customization process. Rautiola explained that the cyclone has a wet high velocity underflow which produces a lot of splatter and “to keep that under control they have an easily closable latch to the underflow collection box, which redistributes that slurry across the bottom of the dewatering screen — the final part in the process — to take the wet underflow of the cyclone and produce it drip free off the end.” Fine product-size sand and water that go through the dewatering screen panels are recycled back through the feed sump for another opportunity at recovery in the cyclone. He also mentioned that the dewatering station has an adjustable dam to aid in producing the “maximum dry product.”

McCloskey Washing Systems also offers wash plants with the traditional method of processing — utilizing a screw washer for collecting the sand from the underflow to be discharged onto a conveyor belt, if that is the desired method of the producer.