Central cone silos for cement

Cement silos are either part of the production process in integrated cement plants or they can also be the key part of distribution terminals. For the cement industry these storage silos are very important because this allows a continuous production while the cement dispatch can be discontinuous. Largest cement storage silos in the cement industry are built with diameters up to 30 m while typical silos for the storage of 20000 t cement have 20 m in diameter and 60 m height. It becomes clear that such silos require an efficient and trouble-free emptying. Accordingly highest requirements are given to overall plant reliability and practically 100% availability. To achieve a high availability flow problems have to be strictly eliminated. From the theory of flow in silos it is well-known, that this can only be achieved with mass-flow. Mass-flow silos need a special design to guarantee the first-in-first-out principle and the usage of the complete storage volume. For cement silos the central cone version has become the predominant design. On the one hand the central cone has a displacement function for the material in the silo; on the other hand several designs especially for multi-compartment designs become possible. Multi-compartment silos are used for producing special cements from a number of main and secondary cement components. This presentation will outline the central cone concept, the multi-compartment design feature and latest practical silo examples in the Americas.