• Corporate
• HISTORY OF BERALMAR, 8/10: 2009-13 – AUTOMATION EQUIPMENT

One of the company’s greatest wishes since the late 1990s was to have its own range of automation equipment to complete its kiln, dryer and combustion equipment offer. Automation equipment is without doubt the most complex component of a ceramics factory. Developing these technologies from the ground up involved many risks.

This long-standing dream finally became a reality when the company took advantage of the opportunity to bring on board the group of professionals led by Cayetano Jiménez. These experts boasted unbeatable experience and well-deserved reputation in the field. In 2009 the company created an Automation Equipment Department that contributed very extensive know-how and a wide range of equipment that ensured total technical success.

BERALMAR thus became a comprehensive supplier, capable of providing a complete ceramics product manufacturing line with its proprietary technology. Its automation equipment included moulding, cutting, loading, drying, dryer equipping, dryer unloading and car stacking, car movement, kiln tunnel equipping, car unstacking, palletising, packaging, etc. The only understandable exception are the machines for clay preparation and moulding.

With this focus, the orders for complete lines were not long in coming. In this period BERALMAR undertook the production of 4 complete lines and its Automatic Equipment Department was quickly consolidated within the company structure:

- BRIQUETERIE TIMADANINE II (Adrar, Algeria): complete line with MESTRAL semi-continous dryer and PRESTHERMIC tunnel kiln for 900 tonnes of ceramic blocks per day.

- ARBAN (Krasnoyarsk, Russia): complete line with LEVANTE direct-load dryer on kiln cars and PRESTHERMIC tunnel kiln for 200 tonnes of solid bricks per day.

- BRIQUETERIE AMRAOUA (Tizi Ouzou, Algeria): complete line with MESTRAL semi-continous dryer and PRESTHERMIC tunnel kiln for 330 tonnes of ceramic blocks per day.

- SEKRA (Novocheboksarsk, Russia): complete line with MESTRAL semi-continuous dryer and FONTHERMIC tunnel kiln for 200 perforated clinker face bricks and solid paving slabs, with all formats bevelled on all four faces.

As a result of this new Department and the automation equipment assembly and commissioning technicians required, the BERALMAR workforce grew considerably so that by late 2013 the company had 60 employees.

• THIRTEENTH PART OF THE TREATISE ON DRYING AND FIRING

In this thirteenth installment, we publish part of chapter 1.12 of the drying treatise:

Chapter 1.12: Types of heat generator.
1.12.1: Clean air generators.
1.12.2: Heat generators which use flue gases

We hope it will be of interest to our readers.

• THE BERALMAR NEWSLETTER NOW HAS A READERSHIP OF OVER 2000

Newsletter #68 in Russian - February 2013

The BERALMAR Monthly Newsletter reached a new milestone last September when it was distributed for the first time to more than 2,000 industry professionals.

There are two main keys to the success of the BERALMAR newsletter:

- Distribution in 11 languages gives a high degree of accessibility.

- Its lightness: each monthly publication contains between 4 and 7 news items designed for you to be able to read in no more than 5 minutes.

The BERALMAR newsletter has been distributed since September 2006 and has proved an effective tool to update readers about our organization, as well as serving as a source of information by industry magazines, which often refer to articles published in the Newsletter in their publications.

The salient figures of the Newsletter at the time of writing are:

- 86 monthly issues published.
- 474 news items.
- 11 languages.
- 2,018 recipients.

• BERALMAR AT THE “CLAYTECH” CONFERENCE IN THE UK

BERALMAR will be taking part in next year's CLAYTECH congress to be held on 20 November in Stafford (UK) at the Staffordshire County Showground.

The CLAYTECH conference is an annual event organized by the British International CLAY TECHNOLOGY ASSOCIATION. This is the main event of the ceramics industry in the UK, and BERALMAR will be participating for the first time.

Besides having its own stand at the event, BERALMAR's participation in CLAYTECH 2014 will be completed with a talk entitled "Use of alternative fuel technologies", a topic in keeping with the main theme of this year's conference ("Working smarter" ) with which the organizers aim to guide speakers to address issues related to energy efficiency and energy savings.

• News and Accomplishments
• COMMISSIONING OF A NEW FACTORY IN RUSSIA

Location of the new factory in Siberia

Coal heat generator mod. GBS/2000

Coal dryer

Direct setting by robots

PROMATIC system mill

Kiln firing zone. Coal is the only fuel used in this process

In recent weeks BERALMAR completed the commissioning of a new factory in Kansk, near Krasnoyarsk (Siberia, Russia) for the large local industrial group ARBAN.

BERALMAR's project supply comprised:

- All the cutting machinery.

- Kiln car setting and dehacking.

- LLEVANT dryer.

- PRESTHERMIC tunnel kiln.

- MICROBER and MICROSEC control equipment.


This new production line has a capacity of 30 million pieces per year of solid brick, with the following two main features:

1. Coal is the only fuel used in all production processes. Due to the high input humidity, it was necessary to provide a trommel dryer for the coal, which is then transported to the solids heat generator and PROMATIC firing system.


2. The dryer features direct setting on kiln cars, a process which has the following advantages:


- Moderate investment in automation equipment, since the process only calls for stacking the bricks on the cars immediately after moulding and unstacking them after firing.


- High energy efficiency. Since the dryer works 24 hours per day, 7 days a week, heat is recovered from the kiln continually. The cars also take less than a minute to exit the dryer and enter the kiln, preventing the reabsorption of moisture typical in other dryers, eliminating the need for a pre-kiln.


-Reduced downtime and maintenance. The automation elements are usually to blame for most downtime, a problem that is minimized by the reduced number of automation equipment in this type of dryer.


- Easy switch in production volume. Since the dryer and kiln operate continuously, production changes are as simple as increasing or decreasing the speed of cars, a task which is much simpler than with other types of dryers, where production changes in the dryer and the kiln are different operations to be carried out separately.


- Less manpower. The simplicity of these facilities entails less need for human resources, due to the smaller number of equipment to maintain and the fact that the dryer and kiln operate as a single unit.


All the features and benefits of this production line were focused on a single objective: to minimize energy consumption and optimize the competitiveness of the new factory. The low energy consumption of the dryer, with direct stacking on the kiln car, the efficiency of the airtight PRESTHERMIC kiln and the exclusive use of local coal as the only fuel for all processes make this product line an excellent example of energy efficiency combined with the use of a low cost fuel.