Concrete mixing plant introduction
A concrete plant, also known as a batch plant or batching plant or a concrete batching plant, is equipment that combines various ingredients to form concrete. Some of these inputs include water, air, admixtures,sand, aggregate (rocks, gravel, etc), fly ash, silica fume, slag, and cement. A concrete plant can have a variety of parts and accessories, including: mixers (either tilt drum or horizontal, or in some cases both), cement batchers, aggregate batchers, conveyors,radial stackers, aggregate bins, cement bins, heaters, chillers, cement silos, batch plant controls, and dust collectors.
The heart of the concrete batching plant is the mixer, and there are many types of mixers, such as tilt drum, pan, planetary, single shaft and twin shaft. The twin shaft mixer can ensure an even mixture of concrete through the use of high horsepower motors, while the tilt mixer offers a comparatively large batch of concrete mix. In North America, the predominant central mixer type is a tilt drum style, while in Europe and other parts of the world, a twin shaft mixer is more prevalent. A pan or planetary mixer is more common at a precast plant.