Mansfield Sand Company has been quarrying sand in north Nottinghamshire, England, for more than 170 years.
The company is a renowned supplier of materials for top-class sports and sporting venues across the United Kingdom and Ireland. It supplies sand to 16 Premier League clubs, 16 Championship clubs and 120 other football (soccer) league and non-league clubs, for use in their stadiums and training facilities.
Besides sand for football stadiums, Mansfield Sand also produces a wide range of products for landscaping and equestrian uses, including championship golf and world-class show-jumping arenas, as well as asphalt sand, foundry sand, and sand for concrete and brick products.
In 2014 Mansfield Sand wanted to upgrade its plant and control system to process a new deposit. The company required a plant that would process 300 tonnes per hour of -65mm sand to manufacture its various products, including golf sand that meets United States Golf Association standards, block pavior sand and asphalt sand.
In addition to this requirement, the local planning commission set a noise restriction that the new plant would not disturb some rare birds nesting near the boundaries of the site.
At this time McLanahan applications engineer Neill Rowland was liaising with Mansfield Sand about purchasing a Hydrosizer sand plant.
“One of the things that sold the plant was McLanahan’s technical ability to offer plant that would produce five different products in one pass,” Rowland said.
He said experience and confidence also played a role in Mansfield Sand’s decision to work with McLanahan. The company was familiar with Hydrosizer systems from an existing plant it had been operating for several decades.
“When you start getting down to really fine sizing, Hydrosizer classification is really more efficient and more cost-effective,” Rowland said.
“The Hydrosizer is the only piece of equipment suitable for the application to achieve the tight tolerances.”
{{quote-A:R-W:215-I:2-Q:"A good team effort by both parties and a professional working relationship providing a technologically advanced plant gives Mansfield Sand flexibility, controllability and future-proofing for the estimated 30-year life of the site"-WHO:Richard Abraham, managing director at Mansfield Sand}}McLanahan installed a Hydrosizer plant incorporating pumps, sumps, hydrocyclones, separator, dewatering screens and a blending system capable of blending to one per cent accuracy, to help Mansfield Sand meet the strict specifications required of its final products. The end products are discharged at less than 15 per cent moisture, which creates stockpiling efficiency and allows for further drying processes.
To meet the planning commission’s requirements, the entire plant is housed within a galvanised structure, clad and insulated to reduce the noise level. The plant’s components are also lined with rubber for protection from the sand’s abrasiveness.
After some calculations from Mansfield Sand’s laboratory technicians, the company discovered the waste from the wash plant would fill its lagoon within 18 months, so it turned to McLanahan for help with water management.
McLanahan provided an ultra-fines recovery system to recover fines down to 40 microns, to extend the life of Mansfield Sand’s lagoon system.
“Anything bigger than 40 microns is recovered,” Rowland said. “Anything less is going to the lagoon.”
Since commissioning the Hydrosizer plant, Mansfield Sand has not received a single customer complaint about the performance of the equipment.
The plant’s modern control system enables the producer to adjust the product to meet consumer demands.
“The plant does have quite a bit of functionality for them to develop product and potentially react to market changes,” Rowland said.
In five years of operation, the Hydrosizer plant has been stable and reliable. It produces a consistent material at 280 tonnes per hour, and to date the plant has produced two million tonnes of sand. Furthermore, the ultra-fines recovery system has doubled the life of the lagoon by allowing Mansfield Sand to capture fine material.
“It’s a low value product, but it’s a product they can sell, and it’s a product that isn’t filling their lagoon, which is the real benefit to them,” Rowland said.
Overall, the Mansfield Sands team is pleased with the Hydrosizer plant and ultra-fines recovery system.
“A good team effort by both parties and a professional working relationship providing a technologically advanced plant gives Mansfield Sand flexibility, controllability and future-proofing for the estimated 30-year life of the site,” Mansfield Sand managing director Richard Abraham said.
“Now, four years on, we continue to have a fantastic working relationship together. Our process plant continues to manufacture our premium quality sands to Mansfield Sand’s exacting standards.
“The partnership between Mansfield Sand and McLanahan has rested on the McLanahan team’s awareness of the importance we place on the reputation of our products and our respect for their experience. The partnership had a lot to prove, and it proved to be a great success.”
Source: McLanahan Corporation