Crushing Advances

Crusher innovations are helping construction companies and civic authorities work more productively.

India was estimated to see a fivefold increase in the production of aggregates between the years 2000 and 2020, to 5,075 million metric tonne (mmt), according to Vadiraj Pappu, Business Head, Terex Powerscreen Business, Voltas Mining & Construction Equipment Division.

Correspondingly, and in keeping with the construction activity across the country, he observes the demand for crushing and screening equipment increasingly across all classes – about half of all the crushers being sold in India are stationary, 35 per cent are wheeled and 15 per cent are track variants. 

“Demand for crushers is currently high but financial closures have been kept in abeyance pending the elections,” says Onkar Sapre, Country Head, Sales & Marketing, Taurian Engineering.

“We saw 25 per cent growth in demand in 2018-19 and expect the same trend in 2019-20,” predicts V Venkataramana, Vice President-Marketing, Puzzolana. “Bharatmala Pariyojana road and highways project, dedicated railway corridors, port connectivity projects and other state infra projects are expected to boost demand for crushers.”

“After the elections, we expect construction activity to pick up pace significantly, as all eyes are on India to maintain its status as the world’s fastest growing major economy,” says Piero Guizzetti, CEO, MB Crusher India. 

“Projects like Bharatmala and Sagarmala, among others, will boost construction activity in coming years.”

“Road projects across the country and mining projects in eastern India are most likely to boost demand for crushers,” 

says Sapre.

“Road, rail, real estate, mining, power and irrigation projects will be the key drivers,” says Pappu. 

“In the mining sector, new iron ore, bauxite, and coal mining leases to be awarded in Odisha, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, etc, will spur demand. In roads, drivers will be large projects such as Bharatmala, Sagarmala and Sumrudhi Yojana.”

To boost the stone crushing segment, RS Raghavan, Managing Director, Proman Infrastructure Services, believes “the government has to find creative ways to raise funds to push infrastructure projects like roads, airports and ports, to spur demand for associated construction equipment. Setting targets for the mining sector would lay a foundation for real growth and elicit better commitment from both public and private companies.”

Personality:- “Post elections, we expect construction activity to pick up pace significantly.” - Piero Guizzetti, CEO, MB Crusher India

Personality: -“We are seeing a steady rise in demand for sand making crushers from commercial segments and road projects.”

Sandvik provides solutions for quarrying, mining, aggregate and sand production. Going forward, Subhasis Das, Vice President, Sandvik Mining and Rock Technology, India, sees a significant increase in demand for Sandvik stationary and mobile crushers, accentuated by the increased demand for aggregates and ballasts.

“Mining will boost demand for track mobile crushing and screening plants from Powerscreen,” says Pappu. “Road and infrastructure projects usually specify the use of three-stage plants, with most tenders recommending vertical shaft impactors, which can also produce crushed sand. Track plants are well-suited to manufacture granular sub-base and wet-mix macadam for road projects.”

MB crushing machines are a cost-effective solution for most stone crushing units in India, where, except for large stone crushing units, most units either buy stone from nearby mines or are situated in close proximity of small mines, comments Guizzetti. “When using MB crushing machines as a primary crusher, there is a huge capex saving, plus the transportation time taken for commissioning, dismantling, etc, of static crushers is eliminated.”

Taurian Engineering has recently launched washing systems with hydrocyclones and horizontal shaft impactors and is on the verge of launching a new type of crushing plant that will be extremely easy to set up.

New-age crushers that integrate with supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) can be controlled remotely. “Syncing a SCADA-compatible crusher with a laptop (or a mobile) is immensely useful because it allows data to be processed in real-time and log sheets to be prepared remotely,” says Onkar Sapre, Country Head, Sales & Marketing, Taurian Engineering. 

“The future of manufacturing is IoT (Internet of Things) and data analytics is an integral part of it,” says Subhasis Das, Vice President, Sandvik Mining and Rock Technology, India. Sandvik’s newly launched CH800i i-intelligent series connected cone crusher is a step in that direction. These high-capacity ‘SMART’ cone crushers meet customers’ need for higher size secondary crushing, tertiary crushing and pebble crushing applications in mines or large-sized quarries. They are automated, safe, easy and quick to maintain and connected via the My Sandvik (digital service solutions) portal. 

So, users get 24/7 access to data generated by the connected Sandvik crusher fleet for better decision-making and monitoring.

Crusher plants of 250 tph are seeing the most demand, according to Sapre, who is of the opinion that machines of this capacity will see strong demand in 2019 followed by plants of 300 tph. That said, crushers of 150 tph have their own set of clients. 

Demand for medium to bigger jaw and cone crushers; high-performance, oil-lubricated VSIs, especially those making manufactured sand, and more efficient, higher-capacity screens (circular and linear motion) solutions are on the rise, says Raghavan. In keeping with this trend, Proman has recently launched jaw and cone crushers of capacity exceeding 300 tph, and dry and wet fine screening solutions for the sand and aggregate segment.

“Companies engaged in the construction of 40-plus km of pavement quality concrete roads per day are demanding three and four-stage crusher plants of 300-500 tph capacity to produce fine aggregates (-)20 mm and sand plants,” says Venkataramana, “while in hilly areas and greenfield projects, crawler-mounted crushers with three-stage application, 

jaw, cone and VSI with screens are in demand.”

Terex Powerscreen Business has successfully launched a 300-tph range of crushing and screening equipment to complement its 200-tph regular range.

Besides the trend to use bigger crushers and 300-tph plants instead of 200-tph plants to meet the major requirement of 0-20 mm aggregates, Das believes the increased government impetus to develop railways, roads, power, airports, ports, water and sanitation could grow the overall infrastructure sector at a CAGR of ~9 per cent over the next five years; in turn, generating 

demand for more innovative and technologically advanced intelligent machines with higher productivity and reduced downtime and operation cost. 

In general, “the Indian crushing and screening industry is becoming more focussed on quality aggregate of the right gradation and shape that can reduce cement consumption and ensure high-quality infrastructure (primarily roads),” adds Das.

Welspun Enterprises in Tamil Nadu is using a 250-tph, three-stage, crawler-mounted crushing plant with a primary jaw station, secondary cone crusher with a screening station and a tertiary VSI crusher with a screening station. “This marks the first time a three-stage crusher has been mounted on a crawler crane for the customer to achieve advanced crushing conveniently,” says V Venkataramana, Vice President, Marketing, Puzzolana. Puzzolana has recently released a 1,000-tph primary jaw crusher, a high-capacity cone crusher and a VSI on a crawler.

The Warrior 600 track screening plant from Powerscreen has been successfully applied to screen municipal solid waste and in riverbed applications. 

At a landfill site in Latur, Maharashtra, the screen is sifting through refuse accumulated over a decade. The output of the plant is classed as 

‘refuse-derived fuel’, and can be used to produce electricity in a variety of ways: In coal power plants, in the cement kiln industry, by plasma arc gasification and in a pyrolysis plant.

In a big laterite quarry site in southern India, a company had a specific requirement for breaking vertical bench and productivity of over 30 mt per hour. The company was using a loading bucket and hydraulic breaker for the primary excavation but the output size was too large and inconsistent (150 mm to >200 mm) as against its requirement of 0-100 mm.

The company switched to using the MB-R800 cutter head installed on its Hyundai R220L series excavator. Incidentally, MB Crusher drum cutters can be fitted on any excavator. With MB’s Drum Cutter, overall productivity increased. 

The MB Drum Cutter has two independent drums. So, from the perspective of power distribution, the direct-drive, twin-motor system allows the differentiated distribution of power to the two cutting heads, which means if the heads were cutting through materials of varying hardness, they could each be receiving different power. This improves stability and eliminates stress on the excavator arm. Also, either of the two drums can be independently dismantled for repairs, especially for the convenience of contractors working remotely or those that cannot afford any downtime.

With a ban on river sand mining in India by the Supreme Court, manufactured sand has become one of the most viable alternatives.

“We’re seeing a steady rise in the demand for sand-making crushers from the commercial segments and road projects,” 

says Raghavan. “The prospects for sand-making crushers are good, especially for suppliers of quality crushers that make manufactured sand as good as or even better than natural riverbed sand, thus helping to conserve a natural resource.” 

Companies such as Mines & Rock, Jyothi Stone Crushers and Bhairava Stone in Karnataka have deployed Proman’s combination of VSG crushers and Wash Sand Group to efficiently produce plaster and manufactured sand, while Euro Industries and Jindal South West have deployed Proman’s solution to convert slag to sand.

Sandvik’s patented CV200 Series Autogenous versatile VSI crushers produce high-quality artificial sand and can perform well with the most difficult materials. Sandvik’s CV229 VSI impact crusher can also be used as a pre-grinder to mills in the mining sector.