5 Pieces of Equipment Needed For Aggregate Crushing
Aggregates are made up of several different kinds of materials. The word “aggregate” itself means a compilation of different things – in this case, stone, gravel, crushed stone, sand, and slag. Those materials often begin as something bigger-larger stones or layers of compressed sediment – and it takes some work by some heavy duty machines to make them into usable aggregate. Once they’ve been crushed into smaller pieces through aggregate crushing, they can then be used for roads, buildings, railroad beds, or other construction purposes.
So what does it take to accomplish that kind of aggregate crushing? What kind of equipment is up to that task?
Vibrating conveyor belt. These conveyor belts are often extremely long, and help carry the aggregate destined for crushing to the various crushers that will be used. Raw material such as large pieces of rock are mined, put into dump trucks, and then poured slowly and carefully onto these vibrating conveyor belts. They vibrate as they go in order to cull out smaller pieces and to keep too many large pieces from falling into the crushers at once.
Jaw crusher. A jaw crusher is usually the first step in aggregate crushing. It is comprised of a vertical plate and an angled plate. As the vibrating conveyor belt pours large pieces of rock into the jaw crusher, the angled plate crushes it against the stationary vertical plate. It then goes down a “throat” at the bottom, crushed into smaller pieces.
Vibrating screen. A vibrating screen has several layers of filters. After the aggregate crushing, the aggregate is poured into these vibrating screens, where the filters sort the rocks into several different sizes. The finer the aggregate is, the more it gets filtered. The quarry or facility can then parcel out these different sizes of materials produced by aggregate crushing and send them to the appropriate customers.
Dump trucks. Over 90% of all aggregate is moved by dump trucks. After it’s dug out of the ground and compressed, cut, or blown into the correct size and shape, crushed aggregate is transported to the worksite where the final product will be used in a construction project. Most aggregate is used within 40 miles of where it’s produced, but it’s becoming more and more common for materials to be transported increasingly longer distances.
Impact crusher. Another vibrating conveyor belt then takes the crushed aggregate to a second crusher. Though the stones are smaller, they aren’t as small as they will need to be for use in construction. The impact crusher utilizes a system of wheels that fling rocks against hard plate, where they are split and broken on impact.
There are, of course, more pieces of equipment needed for aggregate crushing, and some equipment may vary depending on the materials being crushed, but these machines are the major elements that a quarry or other facility will need for this enterprise.
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