Successful reconstruction at Obolsky Ceramics

Sabo S.A., the Greek plant engineering company, continues to extend its geographical reach and is entering the Belarus market with its first project.

The company held out against its competitors and won the tender for the reconstruction of the “Obolsky Ceramic Plant” in the Vitebsk region of Belarus. The customer had previously assured himself of Sabo’s high quality standards and extensive experience in the reconstruction and modernization of existing brick plants all over the world.

In the outdated production line, the dryer and handling equipment were to be refurbished. The plant had worked originally with the dry pressed method to produce ceramic bricks, but serious compromises had to be made with regard to production capacity. The main target of “Obolsky Ceramic Plant” was to change the existing system and start to produce ceramic bricks with the extrusion method to reduce the cost of production and increase the capacity of the production line. Second target was to keep the possibility in the future to make ceramic bricks with the dry pressed method when special orders were placed for pressed bricks, and to maintain the ability to handle these products in the new dry side and dryer.

Complete dryer reconstruction

Sabo S.A. successfully commissioned this project in March 2016. The production line is able to produce a range of products (e.g. 1 NF solid brick, 1 NF perforated facing brick, 1,4 NF solid brick, 1,4 NF perforated facing brick, and 2 NF bricks). The capacity of the production line significantly exceeds the planned capacity for each product.

Sabo reconstructed the dryer completely, without making changes to its exterior structure, which resulted in big savings in the project investment costs. Moreover, the loading and unloading of the dryer and the setting of the kiln car were implemented in a compact design with just a few, simple machines by utilizing in full the flexibility of the robots and new self-supporting dryer frames. All the important loading and unloading operations are performed with three Fanuc robots – 700 kg payload – equipped with special grippers. In this way the machines were fitted to the available space and at the same time it is possible the whole area to be supervised only by a single person.

The dryer was designed to provide a uniform stream of air in all parts of the dryer. In addition, it is automatically controlled by the modern control and regulation system that Sabo has developed. All fans are on top and outside of the dryer, easily accessible for maintenance.

»The scope of the plant reconstruction comprised:

»New pre-cutter and side cutter with chamfering for facing bricks

»Construction of new dryer cars

»Loading and unloading of the dryer cars by a new generation robot system

»Automatic transport of the dryer cars

»Setting machine for grouping and positioning the bricks on kiln cars

»Full reconstruction of the dryer (fans, gas generators, dryer cars, automatic regulation of the dryer, etc.)

»Entry, exit and intermediate transfer cars for the dryer

»Automatic transport of the kiln cars

Sabo S.A.
www.sabo.gr