Aggregate Cooling System for Concrete Cooling

In some cases the ice addition together with chilled water is sufficient to reach the required concrete temperature out of the mixer.
However under certain circumstances it is required to cool the aggregates either by air or by cold water.

Aggregate cooling by ice water

The fastest way of cooling the aggregates is to flood them on a belt conveyor with ice water. Depending on the aggegate size the aggregates can reach an average temperature of 5°C between 1 and 8 minutes for the sizes up to 80 mm. For the big sizes up to 150 mm approx. 35 minutes have to be considered.
The cooling occurs much faster in ice water than in a cold air stream. However it is necessary to have a well functioning de-watering system installed after the flooded cooling belt. Furthermore a subsequent settling tank is mandatory.
The most efficient and reliable water cooling system for aggregate cooling is our specially designed Ice Bank System which can also be supplied as complete containerized version consisting of either hot dipped galvanized tube heat exchangers or as stainless steel plate heat exchangers.

Aggregate cooling by cold air

For cooling the aggregates by air it is necessary to blow a high quantity of cold air through the aggregates inside of silos. The silos have to be equipped with a special air distribution system inside to guarantee a uniform distribution of the temperature within the aggregates. Temperatures of even below 0°C are possible.
The refrigeration equipment is also installed inside of a container.

It consists basically of
• one screw compressor unit
• one evaporative condenser
• one ammonia seperator with high pressure float valve
• one ammonia pump for supplying ammonia to the air cooler
• one switch and control board for controlling the pre-cooling (drying)
  and sub-cooling process.

Normally, the air coolers together with the fans are installed seperately close to the aggregate hoppers. For smaller units they can be installed inside the machinery container.