Belgium: customized concrete precast elements production

In order to complete their range and to strengthen their position on the market, Marc Van Campenhout, current manager of Betca, and Frederik Cornelis managing director, decide to proceed with the construction of new production halls for the manufacturing of prestressed concrete elements up to 45 m long and with a maximum weight up to 64 tons.

The concrete and reinforcement of Betca have the Benor quality label. Moreover, they work according to the guidelines of the internal Care and Quality System. The CE marking on all products indicates that Betca consistently manufactures products that meet customer requirements, relevant standards and regulations.

After the investment and startup of the production unit for pre-stressed columns and beams the logical next step was the purchase of a concrete plant.

BETCA’s demand to BTON, Belgian representative of the Italian company MCT and represented by Bert Cooreman, was threefold:

• automatic delivery of concrete to the various halls,
• delivery of different concrete compositions (both self-compacting and traditional) and
• one person responsible for the supply of the aggregates and cement, concrete production and distribution of the concrete.

The MCT technical department, headed by Eng. Fabio Mearelli, studied a special batching plant inside the existing warehouse, aligning the costumer’s request with the available space.

The plant itself comprises of drive-over receiving hopper where the lorries discharge their materials and these are then taken via a bucket elevator to the aggregate storage hoppers. The materials are then distributed into the correct compartment through a reversible shuttle belt, and all of these functions are controlled by the MCT Aggregate Feeding system, which runs independently from the main control system.

Six aggregate hoppers with a capacity of 50m³each, 300m³in total, then receive the materials, and these are monitored via laser probes to ensure the precise volumes are both checked for materials used and materials being properly discharged when filled from the aggregate feeding system.

When the plant operator then calls for a mix, the materials are collected by MCT’s Mobile Aggregate weigh batcher, capacity of 3,8 m³, the ‘mobile scale’ travels under each compartment and receives the correct material volume, it also allows the materials to be discharged in any order allowing ‘premix’ of material prior to arriving in the mixer. There were several reasons why this was used over a conventional batching / weigh belt arrangement. Primary reasons were a greater accuracy of materials being weighed, a lower investment costs, elimination of material spillage but also for the flexibility, the batching plant in effect is predisposed to add two more aggregates bins 50 cubic meters each.

The “mobile scale” discharge the aggregates directly into the mixer skip hoist by gravity, minimizing the cycle time. Upon the mixer platform are the normal components such as Cement Weighing, Water distribution, Admix & dust extraction.

The planetary mixer type OMG PM3750/2500 guarantees a high mixing efficiency for all types of concrete.

The Betca company has always put first the quality of concrete. Therefore the investment needed for the installation is fully justified thanks to the mixer that guarantees the consistency and homogeneity of the high-quality concrete produced. This definitely strengthens Betca’s already excellent reputation in the Belgium market. The plant allows new product lines in the future as there are: coloured concrete and elements with exposed aggregates.