| Bulk fibre addition system |
Description
VIATEX is a thin surface course asphalt developed by CEMEX. It is made up of aggregates, filler, bitumen binder and cellulose fibres. The bitumen binder gives the material long term durability, and the addition of the cellulose fibres ensures the stability of the material.
Historically, the fibres were purchased in 15kg bales, and then fed into the process manually via an overhead hopper. The hopper required constant feeding by the operator during production. The fibre was dusty and the process was a monotonous, repetitive task. The process was controlled by using job rotation and rest periods. The management wanted to eliminate the task completely to avoid the risk of a manual handling or repetitive strain injury.
A large hopper that fitted on top of the existing feed hopper was installed. The large hopper was fed using 400 kg bags of fibre via a telehandler with a purpose designed lifting frame. The new hopper needs only to be filled every 100 tonnes of production.
Benefits
1.Eliminated the manual handling
2.Eliminated a repetitive task
3.Isolated people from the dust coming from the fibres
4.Made the operation more efficient.
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