L&T joined hands with Kemco from Japan to offer a complete range of sand making solutions that can produce superior river quality engineered sand without impacting rivers and ecological systems
L&T’s Kansbahal Business Unit, a part of L&T’s Metallurgical and Material Handling business, displayed a complete range of crushing solutions at bC India.
L&T’s track record in crushing and screening extends to over four decades. The company enjoys a dominant market share for limestone crushing in the cement industry. Its limestone crushing plant installations are supplied across more than 90 per cent of major cement plants in India.  Its large crusher installation base caters to coal crushing as well in different applications in mining, coal washery, power plants etc. L&T has also supplied many stationary, semi-mobile and now mobile crushers also for different mineral applications including aggregate crushing in construction sector. Another popular product from Kansbahal is L&T’s indigenously developed surface miners used across Indian coal mines and also some limestone mines.
Focus on ‘manufactured sand’In addition to displaying crushing and surface mining product range, L&T’s intent of participation in bC India show was to showcase its ‘advanced sand manufacturing solutions’. It is widely known that good quality river sand is scarce in India. On the other hand, manufactured sand in the country continues to be at a nascent stage of development. Current methods being adopted in India can address just one part of sand quality i.e. removal of unwanted ultra-fines by ‘wet’ or ‘dry’ processes. Two major aspects of good quality sand continue to remain un-attended – the shape and the gradation (or fineness modulus). These quality aspects therefore continue to drive the need and prices of river quality sand.
L&T recently joined hands with Kemco from Japan, one of the world leaders in sand manufacturing technology. With this arrangement, L&T now manufactures, supplies and services a complete range of sand manufacturing solutions starting from dry air classification (air screens) to the revolutionary ‘e7 sand manufacturing system’. This enables the company to meet the increasing demand for superior quality sand for construction. With these L&T-manufactured systems, Indian construction industry can now produce engineered sand at par with superior river quality sand without impacting the country’s rivers and ecological systems.
Improving sand qualityManufactured sand is made from crusher dust (0-5 mm size). Such dust typically produced by jaw or cone or even regular VSIs is angular and flaky shaped, and has gradation which is a mix of coarser particles on one end (2.5 mm-5 mm) and too fine particles (ultra-fines < 150 microns) on other end. The intermediate useful particle size range content in the gradation (150 microns to 2.5 mm) is generally lower than required as compared to standards and hence have high fineness modulus. The ‘e7 – advanced sand manufacturing system’ precisely ensures these most desirable aspects of premium quality sand: sizing and shaping of +2.5 mm to 5 mm to finer desired gradation by a special crusher called Vertipact  and cleaning of ultra-fines and ensuring the top size of product by closed-circuit air-screening. The Vertipact has unique 5-port rotor design along with hammers to ensure breaking and shaping of smaller particles (2.5-5 mm) and air-screen is a technological masterpiece for performing the dual function of screening of sand at low cut points to achieve desired fineness modulus and removal of ultra-fines by optimised air flow. The blower and dust collector work in tandem with air screen through an automated system. The engineered sand thus produced with equi-dimensional shape, right gradation and free-from-ultrafines.
When compared to conventionally manufactured sand, it helps to improve workability or flow-ability of concrete, reduce water and cement consumption, improve strength and finish of concrete. This is why good river sand quality (addressing all these critical aspects of concreting and plastering) comes at such a high-premium today.
Market prospects and demandThe requirement is in excess of a billion tonnes every year going by industry estimates and proportions of cement consumption. The scarcity of good quality river sand and non-availability of good quality manufactured sand has created a very difficult situation for the construction industry. It must be borne in mind that some of the river sands available also do not meet the desired standards and have high percentage of silt and oversize material. One has no control on such naturally occurring sands. The construction industry is therefore left with no other option but to pay a huge premium for river sand or end up doing poorer quality construction. With such scenario, it is obvious that quality conscious construction companies are looking at superior options to manufacture river quality sand economically. To cater to even 5 per cent of total sand requirement in India, there will be hundreds of such sand plants required which have typically 60 tonnes to 100 tonnes per hour capacity.
L&T and Kemco collaborationIt is a technical collaboration where design knowledge of these sand solutions is shared with L&T by Kemco. The manufacturing of complete plants will be done indigenously by L&T in India as per technical know-how from Kemco. L&T will guarantee the performance of the product and provide service support to all its clients. L&T will have exclusive rights for marketing these products in India, Gulf and African countries. L&T is also planning to set up a test sand plant for testing of different materials to produce engineered sand to deliver comprehensive solution in this segment.
Focus regionsThe sand markets are mature in Western and Southern regions in India where construction Industry have already adopted to manufactured sand and continuously looking for improvements in this segment. However, L&T does not intend to limit its marketing efforts in these select regions. The need for sustainable future is true for whole of India.  The non-availability of river sand is going to be reality very soon and everywhere.
Boost for quality constructionWith L&T’s advanced sand manufacturing solutions, quality conscious construction companies do not need to compromise on sand quality while contributing their bit to sustain future of India’s rivers. Though, L&T will cater to all sub-segments of sand manufacturing market, its focus however will continue to be to educate customers to embrace technologically advanced solutions to produce ‘engineered sand’ fit for the purpose.