More expansion work at our plant.

The crew is finished laying the brick hearths. The top was poured today.
Still a ways to go before start-up.

 

This is a better view of a completed deck...
#5 calciner rebuild is now complete. Burners were lit Saturday, we should start a little feed clay on it tomorrow.
#8 calciner build site is still coming along slowly. Got a lot of ground anchors done, adding another section now.

 

They start out with burners on low to cure the mortar and slowly bring things up to temp?

 

Yep, I don't know how low they were over the weekend, but Monday it sat at 1200° for 24 hrs, they put the clay bed in, basically 4.5 tons is slowly added and allowed to make a floor. We put a ramp in today to slowly bring it up to operating temps...50°\hr...then hold there until things get hot throughly

 

Had a few issues with some gas valves yesterday, got those fixed.
Put feed on unit this morning...
We have product flowing through the system...

 

T.Jeff Veal What is the operating temp for those units?

 

Hottest deck is 1850°F

 

Better view of product flow at night...

 

Seeing a little progress on #8 calciner build. Looks like some concrete will be poured soon
Some types of expansion aren't good. Got to work Wednesday evening and one silo decided to leak a bit...lol...
The band between tank bottom and Shaker must have come loose with 30-40 tons of clay in it...
The other side of the pile...
And behind the silo where the door is...
All had to be trashed for possible contamination

 

Good visible progress is happening on #8 calciner build site.
They have gotten the base pad poured where the ground anchors are...
And now the conduit and rebar for the 1 section is done. A little more form work and should see some serious concrete poured.

 

We have a finished pad poured...lot of yards of concrete here. I believe this is where the 2 feed silos will go...

 

They have the 2nd section formed and starting to build the rebar formation

 

We were gone for a week, came back, the 2nd main slab has been poured and conduit is being run and stubbed up.

 

Big boy crane and little brother showed up today, along with 2 metal silos. Guess they will be set up tomorrow...

 

The area where all the conduit was run earlier will be the MCC building. Floor has been poured and blocks delivered.
The tanks were set up yesterday.
The tanks had to be turned around, so driver backed down highway
Got turned around in another driveway and backed into our gate. It was cool watching the rear steer trailer
Smaller crane lifts the bottom
Big crane lifts the top
Continuing top lift, the smaller crane slowly let's slack on bottom and begins to turn
Upright now, taking cables and support brackets off bottom of silo
Slowly beginning the turn to set tank
Headed for the pad...
Almost set...
This crew was done by early afternoon

 

They have some really interesting oversize and overweight over the road tractor/trailers these days.