Further success for Wright in Florida.

Wright Engineering has just completed a project for Monier Lifetile LLC in Florida USA. Monier Lifetile LLC, Lafarge’s joint venture with Boral in North America, invited Wright Engineering to tender for the replacement of their aggregate feed system conveyors, and cement storage, and handling equipment for their roof tile manufacturing facility at Boca Raton, Florida, USA.
 
Wright Brothers have supplied Lafarge (previously Redland) with material handling equipment for over 20 years. In that period the personnel movement within the Lafarge Concrete roof tile organisation has resulted in their reputation for quality of equipment and reliable and timely installations being transposed to the USA.

This is the second project for Wright following a successful installation at the Monier - Lake Wells plant last year.

Wright was tasked with the design, manufacture and installation as well as being responsible for the control of both the electrical and civil element aspects.
Working within current production requirements and parameters of 150 tph for the main silo feed rate and a plant requirement of 66 tph at an aggregate density of 90 lb/ft³ the design staff also accepted the challenge of designing conveyors to the strict Hurricane Code standards of Florida State.
 
Wright supplied a new dump hopper, fitted with grizzly bars, incorporating a vibrating feeder which feeds onto an existing inclined short delivery conveyor. Material is then fed onto a new 50 metre long inclined trough belt conveyor which delivers the aggregate feed to the reversing conveyor at high level above the silos.
A second 70 metre long inclined conveyor was also supplied to deliver the aggregate from an existing inclined conveyor to the day tanks. Conveyors were all supplied with maintenance access walkway and platforms.

Complete with feed chutes and belt scrapers the conveyors were completed with weather protection for the whole length with removable side boards. A 100 ton capacity grey cement silo and a 60 ton capacity white cement silo were also supplied. Both silos were fitted with isolating valves to facilitate maintenance on the material delivery system without the need to empty the silo. Both silos included level indication, dust filter system, a discharge system into their respective day tanks, and were completed with suitable access and platforms.

Day bins providing storage for 50 tons of aggregate, 10 tons of white cement and 10 tons of grey cement were supplied complete with the replacement of a delivery system to the mixer feed hopper.

The main requirement of the day bins was that they should utilise the same mounting structure as the existing unit and that aggregate and cement should not share a common wall.

Due to high sales of concrete tiles in Florida during 2005, Wright was asked to install the conveyors over a 2 week shutdown at Christmas.
 
Working within this specific time frame Wright designed and manufactured the elements of the mechanical portion at their production facility at Worksop, Nr Sheffield, UK. These were then test assembled and then shipped in containers to the Florida site.

This shipment was then followed by a 17 man team of engineers who assembled and commissioned the equipment on site.

The civil foundations were cast to Wright designs, and under their supervision were completed by a local contractor in early December.

The whole project was completed ahead of schedule to the client’s complete satisfaction.