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PRECAST CONCRETE ELEMENTS

ࣴ Elematic Oy Ab, 37801 Toijala, New concept for hollow core plant design at Mikkelin Betoni in Finland

In September 2007, Mikkelin Betoni Oy, the sixth in total an investment of € 6 million. The supplier biggest Finnish precaster, put a new concept for of the machinery is Elematic, one of the leading hollow core production into operation, spending precast machinery suppliers in the world.

Holger Karutz, CPI worldwide, Germany ing up to 100 m3 of concrete daily at this tions at Fuji, Japan, in 2005 and at Mil- location today, using 30 tons of cement bank, UK, in 2006, the company took its Mikkelin Betoni has three production sites for this purpose. chance to develop and implement the in Finland. For more than 20 years, the concept in 2007 at Mikkelin Betoni in Fin- company has been working in the field of The existing hall used for the new hollow land. precast concrete. The group has in total of core production line only measures 160 x around 130 employees generating a turn- 12m. For this reason, a special production CutMaster concept for hollow over of € 16 million in 2006. At its pro- line had to be developed to match the out- core production duction site in Vierumäki, Mikkelin Betoni put figures the plant was expected to many years ago also produced hollow generate. First contacts were made in The main idea of the CutMaster concept is core, but then stopped this production to 2004 between Mikkelin Betoni and X-Tec, cutting long pieces of hollow core on stan- concentrate on architectural wall panels the former Finnish hollow core machinery dard hollow core production beds, which and balconies for residential buildings. As producer acquired by Elematic in 2006. are then forwarded to a stationary saw- the construction industry in Finland has With Elematic’s experience derived from ing station for further cutting operations. recently been booming, the top brass of former installations, they succeeded in As mentioned above, Elematic had imple- the company decided in 2004 to set up a implementing and optimizing a new con- mented this concept twice before but this completely new hollow core production cept that will be sold under the name time they improved the production pro- line with the aim of also supplying floor CutMaster from now on. cess even further by including a very spe- slabs to their customers in the region of Elematic presented a similar idea already cial sawing device. Helsinki. In total, the company is produc- at bauma 2004, and after first installa- Concrete production takes place on a second level with a 3 m3 mixer delivered by Lapa, Finland. Due to severe winter conditions usually prevailing in the coun- try, the aggregates are stored inside an- other hall where they can be steam- heated before being delivered under- ground to the mixing station. A bucket conveyor system from Kübat, Germany, takes care of the concrete delivery to the production machine. Mikkelin Betoni de- cided to work with the Lapa mixer and the Kübat bucket conveyor system, but in prin- ciple neither the concrete mixing nor the delivery system are in any way manda- tory to the main idea of the CutMaster concept.

At Mikkelin Betoni, hollow core slabs are produced on four beds of 132m length 1 each. A multifunction machine cleans the beds by scraping and brushing before The hall for the new hollow core production line has a space of 160 x 12m they are oiled. The rotating brush opera-

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Peikko Group, the leading European company 2b in the field of fastening technology for concrete construction. Long pieces of hollow core slabs are transported to an encapsulated sawing station www.peikko.com

NEW 2007

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A 3m3 mixer from Lapa and a bucket conveyor system from Kübat are delivering the concrete

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Multifunction machine positioning is laser controlled : Peikko Austria GmbH, Czech Republic: Peikko Czech Republic s.r.o., Denmark: Peikko www.cpi-worldwide.com CPI – Concrete Plant International – 6|2007 Danmark ApS, Estonia: Peikko Eesti OÜ, Finland: Peikko Finland Oy, Germany: Peikko Deutschland GmbH, Italy: Peikko Italia S.r.l, Lithuania: UAB “Peikko Lietuva”, Norway: Peikko Norge as, Poland: Peikko Polska Sp. z o.o., Russia: OOO Peikko, Slovakia: Peikko Slovakia s.r.o., Spain: Peikko Spain SL, : Peikko Sverige AB, the : Peikko Benelux B.V., : Peikko UK Ltd. 05a-Fertig_146-171_us 23.11.2007 10:01 Uhr Seite 148

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The 200 ton multi-strand prestressing machine X-Tex Extruder available by Elematic today

tes electro-mechanically. The Multifunction extruder has been part of the Elematic product, up to 2.2 m/min hollow core machine is also used to pull the strands machinery equipment since Elematic de- slabs can be produced. from the running cradles and to properly cided to integrate reliable machinery of position them on the casting bed. A 200 the X-Tec equipment after its acquisition Laser controlled marking ton multi-strand prestressing machine into their own machinery portfolio. and feeding device makes it possible to stress all strands simul- taneously and utilises soft detensioning The X-Tec Extruder 102 runs with the After the production process of the slabs, possibilities. patented Multicomp compaction devices. a MultiMarker machine passes along the Mikkelin Betoni currently uses nozzle slab to affix identifiers on the slab and to Pre-cut 45 m long hollow core slabs modules for slabs of 200-370 mm height, mark openings and the like. The machine but it is planned to extend the production also passes laser-controlled along the The production process itself is carried out capacity to 400 mm slabs in the near beds to ensure an optimal positioning of by means of an X-Tec Extruder 102. This future. Depending on the height of the all markings. For curing, the beds are

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After placing the long slabs onto the wooden conveyor belt, they The complete sawing station is encapsulated for environmental are positioned by laser for exact sawing operations reasons

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These large and heavy products are trans- ported by means of a special lifting de- vice of 40 m length featuring two cranes of 30 ton capacity to a conveyor belt capable of moving the product into the sawing station. Conveyor belt movement is also laser-controlled. This way, Mikkelin Betoni can guarantee that hollow core slabs are perfectly cut to size.

Enclosed six-axis industrial robot for ecological sawing processes

The enclosed stationary sawing station features the biggest innovation of the plant: the sawing process is carried out by a Kuka robot that is capable of sawing any desired angle and even 3D spatial 9 cuts for special purposes.

The Kuka robot can operate even in 3D spatial cuts used for the corners of special With this system, Mikkelin Betoni can saw basement constructions made of hollow core slabs their full production (four beds of 125 m hollow core slabs) in less than 5 hours at covered with sheets to support the bed depending on the type of cement used for an average of 70 slabs of different heating from below and to shorten curing production. A standard 90° saw cuts lengths. times. Typically, the products are hard- hollow core sections with a length of up to This special concept addresses a multi- ened after 8 hours at Mikkelin Betoni, 45m - the longer, the better. tude of environmental issues as well. The

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The CutMaster system allows Mikkelin Betoni to operate four beds for the production After cutting, the hollow core slabs auto- of 125 m hollow core slabs in less than 5 hours to an average figure of 70 slabs of matically pass the drilling station different lengths

noise during sawing operations is tremen- water reuse is a very important aspect in Outlook dously decreased. The occurrence of Finland because ground water is usually quartz dust is extremely reduced as well, consumed as drinking water in this coun- The CutMaster concept can easily be a big challenge for precast plants on try. adapted to existing plants for moderniza- account of upcoming restrictions the in- Another advantage of the stationary saw tion purposes and productivity increase. dustry will be facing in the near future. A is that due to the absence of slurry on the third issue in this context is waste water beds during hollow core sawing, the slabs The € 6 million investment of Mikkelin collection inside the sawing station, an produced are less slippery. Betoni included a lot of development work issue that has been addressed by the After cutting the hollow core slabs to size, necessary for the new concept. Had an waste water being collected underneath another conveying system passes them on already existing plant been adapted, the the station. An underground channel to the delivery hall where they are proper- cost would have been significantly less. system ensures that the water flows to a ly stacked onto special lorry racks to be special reservoir from where further treat- directly transported to the construction According to Juha Pulkkanen, plant mana- ment methods can be applied. Waste site. ger of Mikkelin Betoni, the design of this

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The hollow core slabs cut to size are lifted onto special racks, ready to be transported to the construction site

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Lassi Järvinen, technical director of Elematic (left) and Juha Pulkkanen, plant manager of Mikkelin Betoni Oy, believe that the CutMaster concept will significantly change the hollow core industry

plant in Vierumäki is worth its price: “For Further information: us it is very interesting to have Elematic as our partner introducing a new production concept for the hollow core industry. I am sure that the robot saw will be a solution that will be seen in many plants in the near Mikkelin Betoni Oy future. No other solution would have pro- Vierumäen Tehdas vided us with the opportunity of produc- Urajärventie 112 ing this large number of hollow core slabs 19110 Vierumäki, FINLAND every single day.” T +358 3 875610 F +358 3 8756120 [email protected] Lassi Järvinen, technical director of Ele- www.mikkelinbetoni.fi matic, gave an outlook of near future developments incorporating the CutMas- ter concept: “By also involving Lappeen- ranta University of Technology and other selected companies, Elematic will con- Elematic Oy Ab tinue its R&D efforts on the CutMaster con- Airolantie 2 cept. Since, for example, all products are P.O. Box 33 passing the same station in a plant, we 37801 Toijala, FINLAND T +358 3 549 511 will shortly be able to install a special F +358 3 549 5300 camera right behind the sawing station [email protected] and a laser system to carry out the quali- www.elematic.com ABSTANDHALTER ty control on all slabs. With this system, customers will be able to take all measure- Klagebach 90 ments of the hollow core slab automatical- 58579 Schalksmuehle ly – even the slippage of the prestressing Germany strands will then be detected automatically.” Tel. 0 23 55/90 99 90 í Fax 0 23 55/90 99 99 http://www.seifert.de

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