Eight tips to produce a consistent product

Metso’s Matt Gerten, manager of application support and complex proposals, offered tips at his company’s 2013 Quarry Solutions & Industry Knowledge Expo on how to produce a consistent product. Here are the eight must-do’s Gerten suggested on behalf of Metso:

1. Operate at a consistent choke-fed cavity level. If you can run a crusher at a constant level with the same product and the same speed setting, you’re more likely to produce a consistent product, Gerten says.

2. Operate at a consistent closed side discharge setting. The more abrasive the material, the more the setting will wear. Check the setting consistently. Even small increases in crusher settings due to liner wear will result in product gradation changes.

3. Have a properly distributed feed. According to Gerten, all feed should be directed vertically into the center of the crusher. Poor distribution results in low crusher throughput, elongated and oversized product, adjustment ring movement and a tilted adjustment ring.

4. Have a homogenous feed stream. Make sure your fines and coarse feed are mixed properly. Producers should want a smooth gradation curve in the crusher cavity, as well as voids filled with smaller rocks to achieve good rock-on-rock interaction.

5. Have some fines present in the feed – but not too many. Gerten says you don’t want too many fines in a crusher feed, but you do want some. An excessive number of fines tends to clog the voids between the feed material. A rule of thumb Gerten suggests following: fines should represent 25 percent or less of a feed for a secondary cone crusher, and they should represent 10 percent or less of a tertiary cone’s feed.

6. Make sure your feed material is well graded. Gerten says producers should strive to avoid having a cavity full of single-size particles. For voids, he says strive for a well graded feed so all points fit together and the cavity is dense with plenty of rock-on-rock interaction.

7. Don’t exceed the maximum feed size for the liner being used. “Trying to crush oversize feed wastes time, detracts from capacity, creates irregular liner wear profiles and imposes unnecessary stresses,” Gerten says.

8. Minimize surge loading. Surge loading of a crusher is a production enemy, he adds. Surge piles and feed hoppers can easily increase productivity by at least 10 percent.

Learn more about Metso’s 2013 Quarry Solutions & Industry Knowledge Expo here.