Industry: Cement

Description of Equipment: Cement Kiln

Problem: The low-cement castable that was installed in situ wore too quickly. The poor service life required downtime for emergency repairs to be made between planned outages.

Solution: Thermblock High Wear Precast Shape

Product Being Replaced: Conventional low cement castable

Savings: The first Thermblock Feed Shelf was inspected after eight months in service and it looked brand new. It was inspected again after 12 months and looked good enough that the customer decided to keep the shape in service for another 12 months. After 24 months in service it was replaced with another Thermblock feed shelf. The customer now replaces it every 12 months during planned outages. Doubling the feed shelf service life eliminated the need for emergency repairs in this area. This significantly reduced overall down time and provided significant cost savings.

Products Applied: Thermblock Precast Feed Shelf manufactured using Thermbond castastables designed for high wear precast shapes.

Method of Installation: Rigged and bolted

Equipment Used: Rigging, steel bolts, and hand tools.

Scope of Work: Existing low cement castable is torn out in order to fit the new precast shape in place. The new feed shelf is bolted onto the steel shell and new low cement castable is placed around the shape to ensure there is a tight fit with no gaps.

Installation Date: Thermblock was first installed in 2015. The precast shape is replaced every 12 months during planned outages.

Follow Up: Next Thermblock feed shelf will be installed in 2021.