ELBA-WERK Maschinen-Gesellschaft this year rolled out a number of innovative machines and systems to fabricate, process and transport concrete, among which is a new plant that can recycle residual quantities of concrete, mortar or screed.

The machine – the ERC 20 – made its first public appearance earlier this year at bauma 2013, the largest exhibition in the world for construction machinery held in Munich, Germany.

Elaborating on the recycling plant, which has been designed as a trough system, a company spokesman says: “The individual component parts of the material to be recycled are washed out in a closed material cycle. The process water can be reused in the concrete production. With continuous concrete input, the washing-out capacity of the plant amounts to 20 cu m per hour.”

The basic ERC 20 recycling plant consists of a galvanised, inclined washout drum (pear-shaped); integrated shaft including washout spiral; material feeding trough including swivelling gallows-shaped flush pipe; water nozzles in the material feeding trough; control cabinet housing with all electrical controls; electrical installation; and permanent wearing protection of the washout drum by a concrete layer placed on site.

Operation-specific adjustments can be made to the plant using the vast range of accessories offered by Elba. In addition, an optional above-floor basin enables a complete plant to be installed without extensive concreting work.

Elba is committed to producing high-standard construction machines that among the frontrunners in terms of quality, performance, and economic efficiency. Its product range includes single-shaft and twin-shaft compulsory mixers; planetary counterflow compulsory mixers; stationary concrete mixing plants; mobile and semi-mobile concrete plants; linear storage bins; control systems for readymix and precast concrete mixing plants; manual and automatic scrapers; and concrete recycling plants.

“The most important component of every concrete mixing system is the compulsory mixer installed in the mixing chamber,” says the spokesman, “and for every mixing task, Elba offers tailored solutions. Elba’s certified single- or twin-shaft compulsory mixers operating on the double-spiral principle or planetary counterflow mixers can be used in many applications in concrete fabrication, while appropriate plant and control technologies as well as recycling systems complete the delivery programme.”

Mixers

Its mixers are used where customers need consistent concrete production and are available in different sizes, allowing the customer to select the machines for the desired output.

Among the latest of such machines offered by Elba is the EMPG series, which is mainly used in precast concrete works such as block-making and/or concrete products industries. This mixer type distinguishes itself by a rotor that turns around the vertical centre axis, and is, depending on the mixer size, fitted with one to three mixing stars or agitators. Several concrete outlets may be provided for, allowing the mixers to be applied under various plant and production conditions.

The spokesman says Elba constantly strives for innovations in machine technology. Its mobile and stationary mixing plants can achieve outputs of 30 to 200 cu m per hour.

At this year’s bauma trade fair, Elba launched the linear mixing plant ECC-D 105 featuring an EMDW 2000 mixer (Elba twin-shaft mixer 2 cu m) with outputs of up to 105 cu m per hour.

“The development of this series reflects many years of experience in constructing concrete plants and meeting customer needs, ensuring fast and simple installation as well as low-cost transport by strictly keeping to container dimensions. The new plant series will be available in various construction sizes. Depending on plant and mixer sizes, they are capable of achieving outputs of up to 200 cu m per hour,” says the spokesman.

Control systems

In terms of plant automation systems, Elba has launched the new Elbamatic WB8, which is designed to automate and control block-making and concrete products manufacturing plants.

The Elbamatic WB8 meets the special needs of precast concrete fabrication including fabrication of stones and plates; pipes and shafts; and precast parts.

“The Elbamatic is an efficient state-of-the-art process control system,” says the spokesman. “It consists of sequencing logic, visualization and data base, and is run via PC and connected to the power part by an Interbus system. It doesn’t required manufacturer-specific hardware and all its component parts are freely available on the market or can be purchased through Elba.

The mixing and batching windows visualise the mixing system clearly including all batching units, belts, scales, skips and mixers, indicating the actual state of all the important functions of the system. For standard applications, there are two freely assignable monitors: a plant monitor and an order planning/disposition monitor.”

An optional package for all Elba mixing systems and plants is the Mixonomic. This control package enables customers to optimise their concrete fabrication with regard to output and economy, regardless of whether the Mixonomic is installed on old or new Elba plants.

The Mixonomic package consists of an up-to-date frequency inverter for the drive of the concrete mixer, shielded cable lines to connect the mixer motors, as well as a separately mountable casing housing a programmable logic control (PLC) with the Mixonomic software developed by Elba.