Cement Works - 6 - Rotary Kiln

Central to the cement works is the rotary kiln which turns at a nominal 2rpm and heats the mix of limestone, silica sand and in real life other additives, to form a clinker. The left hand building performs pre-heating of the mix and cleans the exhaust gases prior to release in the flue (chimney). The flue is not shown in place at this time. The mix enters at the high end and is gradually heated by the flame fuelled in this case by pulverised coal at the lower end. The resulting clinker is cooled and the initial raw grind to size of the clinker is performed. This will be passed to the silos shown in part 4 of this series of threads.

The kiln barrel has been spray painted in a characteristically rusty state, with a darker state at the burner end and shiny supporting tyres.

Motorising of the rotary kiln uses a combined motor and gearbox assembly from that well known auction site. It is coupled to the kiln cylinder by a reinforced rubber sleeve arrangement. One end is a push fit on the motor shaft and the other end is sleeved down in diameter and reinforced internally with a short pointed piece of toothpick. This enters a hole centrally cut in the end of the kiln barrel. Power for the motor comes from an old Nokia phone charger via a dropper resistor to set the kiln rotation speed. I did not use the Walther motorising kit because it is very expensive and I suspect runs fast with a noisy gearbox, however that may not be the case. Anyway, this approach was a lot cheaper and runs quietly.

The next stage is the pre-mix building and silica sand silos which will stand between the crushed limestone warehouse and the pre-heat building, these are currently wip.




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Hi Keith,

Prices higher this year when I was looking, and Gaugemaster still seems to be the main retailer in the UK, price is £25 for the motorising kit, but free p&p as it is over £15!

The motor & gearbox assembly I bought was less than £6 delivered from a UK address, has a high reduction gearbox attached and only a simple power supply was required from my old PSU collection, so it was a more cost effective solution for me.
Besides I do not put simple items on my DCC system when all I have to do is operate a switch to turn on the PSU.

I reserve my DCC for loco driving only, not even points, signals or sound.

I wouldn't fit a smoke unit as it would require an awful lot to be convincing and would smoke me out in the process, I have settled for a sooty affect around the flue top and as it is less than 100mm from the ceiling, my railway is multi-decked, I could almost just add a piece of sooty cotton wool to the top and paint a smokey cloud on the ceiling.

Jim

 

Mine too, unlike real smoke it is too dense, partly through low temperature and the chimneys are not tall enough to cause the necessary draughting.

 

Wouldn't help the humidity in a UK room, belching out clouds of steam, cement works are very energy hungry