Capital Equipment News January 2022

CRUSHING & SCREENING

To truly maximise a processing plant’s efficiency, unnecessary crushing must be minimised or eliminated.

The crushing costs of poor screening

Efficient crushing is a critical factor in a screening plant’s profitability. Crushers are a significant investment, both to own and to operate, and the entire process depends on the crusher to work effectively. But what often goes unnoticed – and frankly, undiagnosed – is the effect that poor screening can have on an operation’s profits. Inefficient screening silently tallies up costs as material is needlessly recirculated through the crusher. By Serge Raymond, MAJOR product specialist.

T o truly maximise a processing plant’s efficiency, unnecessary crushing must be minimised or eliminated. To do this, plant operators must understand how recirculation could be hurting their profit- ability, and what they can do to minimise it. Material recirculation If the screen box is not doing its job well,

material that should have fallen through the screen media ends up circulating back to the crusher to be crushed again. Recirculation is hard to detect and even harder to measure, making it difficult to put a value on. It can wreak havoc on an operation’s bottom line but never be identified as the problem. There are a number of ways it can cost a plant money. The obvious consideration is wear

and tear on the crusher. Crushers are expensive to fix and replace – up to three times the cost of replacing a screen box. Material recirculated through the crusher accelerates the machine’s retirement, bringing that replacement expense to bear more quickly than would have been required. Unnecessary work for the crusher also hastens its service intervals and causes

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