Dragon Products
Dragon Products is a manufacturer of Portland cement located in Thomaston, Maine with an on-site quarry. Lyman-Morse Fabrication currently provides Dragon Products with the majority of their custom fabricated equipment as well as contracted labor for on-site installations, maintenance, and repair. During my time at Lyman-Morse, I had the opportunity to provide design support for various maintenance and capital improvement projects at Dragon Products’ cement plant ranging from revising shield plating for rock crushers to plant wide renovation to the duct collection system. One of the most notable projects that I directly managed the design efforts for was the installation of a clinker recycling system.
Clinker Recycler
Clinker is considered a waste byproduct of the the drying process for the raw ingredients of Portland cement. A certain percentage of Portland cement is made up of miscellaneous stone and ash fillers which vary in order to tailor the curing and strength properties of the product. Dragon Products sought to utilize a covered storage area to build a feed system to introduce the clinker into the mixture process to minimize production waste.
This project required surveying the storage building as well as a section of the mixture tower in order to model and map a route for the conveyors and air slides that would carry the clinker. The goal was to utilize as much of the previously decommissioned equipment at the facility as possible for the clinker system in order to reduce cost. Locating an existing hopper feeder and trommel for ease of loading with a front loader, the conveyor and duct work were routed to accommodate incline limitations and to route around existing structural members of the facility exterior walls.