At Aceralia steel mill
In August of 2000, an important find was made over the vast waters of the Atlantic Ocean. An engineering specialist for PHB Weserhutte S.A., of Gijon, Asturias, Spain was searching for the best equipment to elevate raw coal to the blast furnace pulverizing plants of a major steel producer in Northern Spain. That search led to Dos Santos International (DSI).
PHB Weserhutte was offering a system expansion, including a new blast furnace pulverizing plant. This, plus the requirements of the existing pulver izing plant, required increased coal throughput. PHB’s customer Aceralia, also of Gijon, Asturias, Spain, needed to replace an existing vertical pocket belt system that served the existing pulverizing plant. The pocket belt system proved to be problematic, as it did not completely discharge the moist coal. Instead, it carried back material and created a clean-up problem.
The original enquiry was for two DSI Snake Sandwich High- Angle conveyors. The first conveyor would replace the troubled pocket belt system to the existing pulverizing plant. A second Snake conveyor would elevate to the new pulverizing plant. After some analysis, PHB and DSI found they could serve both pulverizing plants with only one DSI Snake Sandwich Conveyor, instead of two. The conveying path to the new plant would pass by the existing plant, thus a single DSI Snake with a bifurcated discharge chute and flop gate could direct the raw coal flow alternately to the new pulverizing plant or to the existing plant. Additionally, because the DSI sandwich belts utilize conventional, smooth rubber belts, they completely discharge the material using standard belt scrapers.
The DSI Snake is the latest in sandwich belt high-angle conveyor technology, employing all and only conventional conveyor equipment and components. A firm yet gentle hugging pressure, imparted to the conveyed material, is induced entirely by radial pressure from the belt tension and carrying profile. The DSI Snake at Aceralia Steel Mill has been in successful operation forseven years.
At Repsol Refineries
The success at Aceralia did not go unnoticed. Since then, two new DSI Snakes have been ordered for operation in Spain.
The first is has been ordered by Repsol Refineries near Bilbao, northeastern Spain, and the second for operation in Cartagena, southern Spain.
The new DSI Snake at the Muskiz Refinery, near Bilbao, is currently under construction. The coke elevating system delivers the hot product to an overhead stacking system within the covered storage building. Designed to operate in an enclosed, potentially explosive environment, this snake is subject to and compliant with the latest and strictest ATEX standards. The Snake at Muskiz will begin operation in 2011.
A second DSI Snake for Repsol is depicted and summarized below. This ‘C-snake’ will elevate sulfur at the refinery near Cartagena, on the Mediterranean Sea. The C-Snake has just commenced construction and is scheduled for start-up in April 2011.
DSI Snakes worldwide
The list of DSI Snakes continues to grow with widely varying applications throughout the world. DSI offers many varied systems, from stationary units in all sizes, to a fully mobile highangle shiploader, designed to accommodate wharfs with limited space. The wide versatility is demonstrated with each application, but the full capability is far from realized. This bodes for a bright future at Dos Santos International.
