Over the last century, crushing equipment and technology has come a long way.
Plants are now larger, stronger and faster, and they can put out more product than ever before. At its core, though, the aim of the operator remains the same: to crush big rocks into small rocks.
As simple as that goal may seem, there are many factors at play when deciding which crusher – or crushers – are best suited for a job. Material hardness, final product specifications and tons per hour are just a few of the things that need to be assessed ahead of a job.
In recent years, the importance of saving time and money can be added to that list of considerations. With supply chain concerns affecting nearly every industry since the start of COVID – plus increasing prices and inflationary concerns – operators are now seeking to do more with less.
The bigger, the better
Matt Voigt, portable plants product manager at Superior Industries, has seen many customers opt to go from a three- or four-crusher setup to two larger crushers. This trend has increased exponentially over the last three to five years, he says.
“You used to see a lot of jaw-cone-cone [or] jaw-cone-VSI three- or four-stage crushing plants,” Voigt says. “You’re seeing a lot of bigger jaws and bigger cones, and the expectation of that equipment to do what they need to do – typically 1 in. to 1.5 in. or 1-in. minus products – in two stages. Especially on the portable side.”
Operators are getting creative to achieve these goals.
“We’ve seen customers adopting different styles of portable plants where you have a feeding into an overhead feed screen plant and then you back in a rear-feed, rear-discharge cone plant,” Voigt says. “It’s three pieces that easily join each other. No offline conveyors, no stackable jump conveyors – it’s just jaw, screen, cone and then you stack your products and you’re done.”
It isn’t just on the operational side where producers are trying to save money. As mobilization costs increase, having fewer plants to move from site to site provides cost savings, as well.
“Our focus is to get things so that when they move from site to site, they’re not having to do a bunch of work or spend a lot of time in assembly of those units once they get to the site,” Voigt says. “[We want to make it] as quick as possible and have them travel as complete as possible so they’re not having to do a bunch of different things when they show up.”
Reaping rewards
While portable plant operators are at the forefront of the “doing more with less” mindset, stationary producers are also getting involved.
Voigt says fixed plant operators are beginning to incorporate more portable plants. And though in those instances it may not be about doing more with less equipment, operators are nevertheless doing more with less.
“They want to augment what they’re currently doing,” he says. “They’re in a geographical area and they don’t want to have to do permitting or build another fixed portion of their plant, so they’re bringing in portable equipment. They might have a quick blip in that area or just have an increase in demand, so instead of getting revised permitting and doing all of that, they just bring in portable equipment to help bridge that gap.”
Voigt says there is also a shift with portable operators using track plants now turning to wheel-mounted equipment. This is because track units can only get so big and produce so many tons per hour.
“We’re getting a wave of customers saying: ‘The track plants are great and they have their place, but we’re really trying to increase our throughput and tons per hour, and we can’t get there economically with a track plant,’” Voigt says. “So they’re moving to some of these larger portable plants.”
Learning the limits
Going bigger has it benefits, but there are also restrictions operators must be mindful of. Specifically, restrictions related to moving the equipment from one place to another.
“The challenge our engineering team is faced with regularly is how much can we get on a load and how much is too much to bear,” Voigt says. “Basically, it will plateau at whatever is road legal. After that, it becomes how much assembly and disassembly are the customers willing to do to make it road legal?”
Voigt says chassis manufacturers such as Superior and others aim to meet road regulations for where it is built, where it has to go and making weight, height and width requirements to do that.
Despite some of these limitations, the benefits provided by going bigger seem to outweigh the concerns – at least for now. Voigt, at least, doesn’t see any signs of this trend slowing anytime soon.
“Fifteen to 20 years ago, the most common portable size on a chassis was a 300 RD plant,” Voigt says. “That was the bread and butter. Now, you’re not seeing that anymore. You’re seeing s predominantly, but now we’re seeing an increase to 500-hp wheel-mounted units. The equipment is getting bigger, and they’re wanting to do even more.”