A renowned manufacturer of building materials in Scotland and the north of England was using two pan mixers to produce both concrete products and readymix concrete.
The constituents of the concrete mix included both abrasive aggregate and coarse sand, these materials were having an impact on the service life of the pan mixers’ wear parts.
In particular, the cast steel mixing blades required replacement after a period of only three months. This is equivalent to the replacement of 32 blades per year in this mixer alone.
Image: Cast steel mixing blades lasting only 3 months
The client got in touch with our National Sales Engineer to find out what alternatives we could offer to reduce maintenance in this area of the plant.
ConSpare talked the plant manager through the full range of abrasion resistant mixer spares available for the machine, included cast steel, Hawiflex® polyurethane, hardweld “hybrid”, and tungsten carbide coated. They then decided to trial Hawiflex® polyurethane blades against the OEM cast steel alternative.
In this case the Hawiflex® blades significantly outperformed the OEM cast steel, lasting 9 months instead of the 3 months the cast steel was achieving, tripling the service life and reducing maintenance requirements in the mixer. All mixer blades have now been upgraded to Hawiflex® in both the client’s mixers.
Image: Using Hawiflex® has reduced blade CO2 emissions by 76%
Because the blades last longer, fewer will be required per year. Using current ConSpare prices, the total cost of buying and shipping a years worth of Hawiflex® blades for this mixer with these wear rates is 52% lower than buying the cast steel, demonstrating that Hawiflex® blades have a lower whole-life cost.
In addition to the substantial cost savings the move to Hawiflex® is also more sustainable. By comparing the total weight of blades required per year for each option we calculated the total embodied carbon, which is 450kg of CO2 for cast steel and just 108kg of CO2 for Hawiflex®. This is an annual reduction of 342kg of CO2 or 76%.
There are a wide range of secondary benefits to the blades lasting longer, including a reduction in the need for purchase orders, carriage charges, blade installations, blade adjustments, entries into the mixer pan and downtime. Because the Hawiflex® blades are lighter they are cheaper to ship to site and easier to handle. All of these factors save the client additional cost & CO2.
In brief
• Mixing blade carbon footprint down more than 75%
• Cost of buying and shipping blades down 52%
• Wear life increase from 3 months to 9 months
• Less entry into mixer reduces maintenance risk
• Downtime, maintenance and adjustments all reduced
Quote
“I love the Hawiflex mixer blades. They’re performing great. I didn’t realise just how comprehensive the ConSpare range of parts was.”
Concrete Plant Manager
DAMAGED AND REPLACED
NO DAMAGE, MINIMAL WEAR
AND STILL IN OPERATION
IN SPEND ON MIXING BLADES SO FAR
LONGER LASTING THAN CAST