Cement is one of the three basic materials in the construction industry, which is widely used, heavily consumed, and known as “food for the construction industry”. With the need for economic development, the output and varieties of cement increase continuously. It can be roughly divided into Portland cement, sulfate aluminum cement, aluminate cement, and so on.
How to produce high-quality cement? There are many factors that affect the quality of cement, such as the selection of raw materials, the use of production technology, etc. The most direct influencing factor is the choice of cement equipment. In the past, people first used earth kilns to calcine clinker
- In 1877, the cement rotary kiln was patented for calcining cement clinker, and then the rotary cooler, cement vertical mill, and cement ball mill appeared. They effectively improved the output and quality of cement.
- In 1910, the mechanized shaft kiln was produced, which enabled efficient and continuous cement production.
- In 1950, the Germans invented the suspension preheater and successfully applied it to the factory. This invention greatly reduced the heat consumption of clinker production and increased the production scale.
- In the early 1960s, Japan introduced the technology of Germany’s suspension preheating and developed the technology of external decomposition of cement kilns in 1971, thus opening a new chapter of the modern cement industry and forming a new dry method cement production technology.
With the continuous development and transformation of the cement industry, more and more efficient, energy-saving, and environmentally friendly cement making machines are being used in cement plants. If you want to work in cement production, there are five crucial cement manufacturing machines you need to know: cement rotary kiln, shaft kiln, cement vertical mill, cement ball mill, and cement roller press.
Cement Rotary Kiln
The cement rotary kiln is the core equipment of a cement plant, mainly responsible for clinker calcination, which can be used in both dry-process cement production lines and wet-process cement production lines. It is usually placed horizontally and at an angle to the ground, forming a state of one end high and one end low. The kiln body rotates slowly under the drive of the engine. The fuel is injected from the kiln head and burned in the kiln to give off heat. Raw materials enter the kiln from the high end and move toward the low end in the slowly rotating kiln body. In this process, chemical and physical reactions are generated through high-temperature heating, and then the clinker is finally formed.
The technical performance and operating conditions of a cement rotary kiln largely determine the quality, output, and cost of cement products. So when we purchase a rotary kiln, we should choose a reliable manufacturer and an equipment model with suitable output, high quality, and high efficiency.
Shaft Kiln
The shaft kiln is also called a vertical kiln. Compared with a cement rotary kiln, it is a standing and non-rotating cylindrical cement kiln, which can also be used in wet cement production lines and dry cement production lines. The interior of the shaft kiln is divided into a preheating zone, a calcination zone, and a cooling zone from top to bottom. Raw materials enter the kiln from the top feeding port and move down by their own weight. In this process, they exchange heat with the hot gas and produce chemical and physical changes, finally forming clinker.
The shaft kiln is not as widely used in cement plants as the rotary kiln, but its structure is simple, and the space occupation is small, so the investment is relatively low. Besides, it has a long service life and can produce cement of stable quality, which is a common clinker calcination machine in cement plants.
Cement Mill
A cement mill is just a general term for a clinker grinding mill. It is a kind of grinding equipment that is used to grind the calcined cement clinker and make it reach the particle fineness requirement of the finished cement product. It is the core equipment of the last step in the cement production process. The cement mills we usually use in cement plants include cement vertical mills, cement ball mills, cement roller presses, etc.
Cement Vertical Mill
At present, most of the cement vertical mills in the market merge crushing, drying, grinding, and grading transportation into a single. They mainly use the grinding disc and rollers to compress clinker particles for realizing the reduction in grain size with minimal dust pollution. The cement vertical mill has become the first choice of many cement plants.
Features
- The system is simple, the layout is compact, and it can be arranged in the open air, which saves a lot of investment cost.
- Small vibration, low noise, and the whole equipment is sealed. The system works under negative pressure with no dust spillover, meeting the national environmental requirements.
- The grinding roller directs grind materials on the grinding disc. It saves 30% – 40% energy consumption compared with the ball mill grinding system.
Cement Ball Mill
A cement ball mill is a kind of horizontal cylindrical rotary grinding device. Through continuous rotation, the grinding media (grinding steel balls) in the cylinder body are thrown into the air and then fall to hit the clinker to realize the reduction of the clinker particle size.
Features
- Strong adaptability to physical properties of materials (particle size, moisture, hardness, etc.).
- Full hydraulic operation, easy to use, easy to automate, 40% reduction in energy consumption.
- The circular vibrating screen is used to form a closed-circuit system to realize the circulation grinding of materials. The crushing efficiency increased by 15%.
- It can adapt to different operation requirements: dry or wet cement production, open or closed system, single pulverizing or pulverizing and drying operations.
Cement Roller Press
The cement roller press is a new kind of cement mill. It is usually used as a pre-grinding system to replace some functions of the ball mill so that the output of the ball mill can be increased by 30-50%. At the same time, it can also be singularly used in cement plant as a clinker grinding machine. In principle, it uses two rollers to extrude clinker to reduce the particle size.
Features
- The roller press is simple in structure, small in size, and light in weight. It occupies little space in the workshop and can save civil construction investment.
- High grinding efficiency and energy- saving.
In fact, except for the five crucial cement manufacturing machines we mentioned above, there are many other cement making machines applied for the cement plant. In real applications, as a professional EPC cement plant provider, AGICO always provides solutions according to clients’ requirements. If you are interested, please feel free to contact us!
