Aggregate Industry Case Study: Cemex, Fulham

A revolutionary compressed air moisture removal unit eradicates equipment downtime and boosts productivity at a Cemex site.

“The air dryer was ineffective, and there would be moisture in the air lines after the dryer, causing lots of problems. Moisture was even more of an issue in winter.”

Alexandru Flocea -Operations Manager for Ready-Mix Concrete -Cemex

Project Background

Cemex’s ready-mix concrete plant in Fulham uses compressed air extensively for day-to-day operations. Protecting pneumatic equipment at the site is essential for the site to function. Throughout the site’s history, issues with compressed air contaminants were often responsible for equipment damage and failure, production downtime, increased maintenance and unnecessary costs. At the Fulham site, there were three critical areas of concern:

Silo area: When moisture infiltrates the aeration system on silos, it causes several issues. Firstly, it damages aeration pads, leading to repair costs. Secondly, problems with silos ratholing, bridging and arching can occur. Not only does this lead to product wastage, but the silos will gradually cave in and collapse, resulting in significant repair costs. Further moisture issues include faulty operation of butterfly valves and reverse jet filters. These problems regularly led to production downtime, additional maintenance, and part replacement.

Mixing station: Valves located by the hoppers and bins were also not functioning correctly due to moisture in the compressed air. For example, the butterfly valve discharging the ready-mix concrete would fail to open or close on demand. Malfunctioning valves would cause product dispatch delays and incorrect product mix ratios. The maintenance teams would then have to rectify the problem.

Aggregate bins: The valves controlling the volume of required materials carried to the mixing station were experiencing frequent damage from moisture and oil emulsion fluids. Damage would cause valves to malfunction, directly impacting the material added to the concrete mixture. The broken valves would then need replacing.

Despite installing a refrigerant dryer and several conventional compressed air filters to stop these issues, these techniques proved ineffective. Operations Manager Alexandru Flocea reported large amounts of moisture build-up after the refrigerant dryer. Therefore, he sought a permanent solution to eradicate issues caused by liquid water, oil emulsion fluids and solid particulates in the compressed air lines.

Why did Cemex choose Expel?

Expel has gained a reputation of excellence amongst the world’s leading aggregate companies. Innumerable sites from across the aggregate and building material sectors have completely eradicated issues from their compressed air lines by installing Expel. Expel’s hard-earned reputation derives from its revolutionary design. Unlike any other solution, Expel operates consistently at 99.999%. Therefore, Expel guarantees that equipment no longer suffers damage from liquid water, oil emulsion fluids or solid particulates. In contrast, the performance of all other solutions degrades without continual maintenance or part replacement. And, even with high maintenance and ongoing costs, they can never guarantee the protection of pneumatic equipment.

Expel has been so effective at ready-mix concrete sites that it has eliminated the need for a refrigerant dryer, meaning sites can reduce energy consumption, costs and maintenance.

For those seeking a permanent solution to the problem of liquid water, oil emulsion fluids and solid particulates, Expel is the perfect tool. The fact that it has a 10-year guarantee provides reassurance that Expel’s performance will not diminish. Cemex selected Expel as their compressed air moisture removal solution for these reasons.

Since installing 4 Expel units, we are pleased to report that the site has not had any issues with moisture, oil emulsion fluids or solid particulates in the compressed air system.