The Manufacturing of Cement: Report by Aariz Chaudhary

Over a three-day period, I was able to observe the manufacturing and distribution of cement
at the Fauji cement plant. The following is a report of the various processes I was shown.

Collection of materials:
Fauji cement has a limestone quarry on site from which they get their raw materials. First
the workers blast the limestone. They do this by drilling into the ground and placing the
explosive into the ground. They then explode the explosives and collect the rubble by hand,
the rubble is then taken to an impact crusher where they are crushed into smaller pieces
and the limestone is separated from the clay that is also in the debris. The material is
dropped into a hopper which feeds the material into the crusher. It is then crushed by
spinning gears into pieces that are less than 40mm big. pieces that are already less than 40
mm pass straight through. There is a scrapper belt under the crusher that catches any pieces
that may have fallen and carries them back up so that that can go through the crusher so
that no material is wasted. The materials then travel on a belt to the storage area.

Storage of materials:
The materials arrive at the storage area where there is a belt that spins around a fixed point
in a circular motion. This belt drops the material into the storage area. Is spins gradually so
that the material doesn’t build up in anyone place but instead is spread out. On the opposite
side of the belt the raw material is pushed onto a belt that pushes the material into a hole in
the middle where is is transported to the raw mill.
Grinding of materials:
The materials then arrive at the grinder. There are four gears. Two on the outside and two
on the inside. There is also a base that spins. The material is dropped onto the middle of the
base. The centrifugal force of the spinning base causes the material to be forced to the
edges where it is grinded to a fine homogenous mixture of about 80% limestone and 20%
clay. It is then preheated.

Preheating of materials:
The materials are then run through a preheater. This is to get separate the mixture from any
air and water that might be in it. There are four cyclones in the preheater. When raw
material enters the cyclone at the top it gets pulled down ,by a combination of gravity and
centrifugal force, to the bottom of the cyclone. Then the material is separated from airflow
and settles. It then enters the feed pipe of the next cyclone where it is heated by the hot
exhaust gasses. This repeats for all four cyclones. After this is done the material moves to
the kiln.
Burning of material:
The raw material is then burnt in a rotary kiln. The material is fed into one end of the kiln, as
it rotates the material is gradually moved to the other end where the go through a certain
amount of stirring, mixing and heating at 1450 degrees centigrade. Once the material comes
out of the end it is now clinker. The main component of cement.

Grinding and mixing of materials:

The clinker is then mixed with a material known as gypsum inside the cement mill. They are
grinded together in a mixture consisting of 95% clinker and 5% gypsum to create cement. It
is then transported into silos where it is stored temporarily. The material travels to the silos
on conveyor belts. it is then collected by bucket elevators that take it to the top where it is
dropped into the silo.
Storage packing and loading:
The cement is then moved from the silo to the packing plant. There are two packing plants
each with four bays where trucks park. Above the bays are packing machines. Bags are
loaded manually onto the machine. It then detects that a bag has placed on it and fills it
which cement. The bags then are automatically lowered onto a conveyor belt. This takes the
full bag of cement to the trucks where they are stacked. Each truck can hold about 150 bags
of cement.