| A Rotoconix 1500-anchored batch plant will be used for premium architectural precast panels at Italy’s Styl-Comp, whose mission centers on “a highly skilled implementation of client and designer requirements, blending technology and aesthetics.” |
Skako Concrete unveiled the Rotconix mixer in Munich at bauma 2013, billing the new equipment series as one based on tried and tested components but setting a new benchmark in the method the individual techniques are combined, interacting as one. The mixer is available in nominal sizes, designated RTX750, RTX1500 and RTX2250. Since launch, Skako Concrete has logged Rotoconix orders from precast producers in the U.S., Italy, Russia and Qatar.
MeldStone UHPC offers Landscape Forms flexibility in design, enabling the producer to achieve geometrical shapes that could not be explored with normal concrete mixes. The material exhibits high resistance to impact and abrasion and achieves very thin and flexible cross-sections, lightweight and slender designs and curved shapes. Landscape Forms has a thorough understanding of the technical aspects of UHPC and set out to find a mixer that would meet the material’s production demands. While narrowing down the search, it learned about the Skako RTX750 mixer, confirming the model offers the flexibility to produce quality UHPC in target quantities.
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| Kalamazoo, Mich.-based Landscape Forms has ordered a Rotoconix mixer to support production of Strata, a new bench and table collection. Company officials see the mixer as especially geared to producing MeldStone Ultra High Performance Concrete, which yields Strata’s thin yet robust elements. Early deliveries from the series have included North Carolina State University’s James B. Hunt, Jr. Library, Raleigh. |
CHARTER USERS
The Landscape Forms order followed the sale of models for concrete producers in Italy, Russia and Qatar. In the latter, two Rotoconix mixers will be installed in mid-2014 with a Skako Atlantis AM2250 mixer in the new plant of Doha-based curb, paving stone and block producer Smeet Precast S.P.C.
The Rotoconix mixers were chosen because they achieve compelling results in high-strength and face concrete while ensuring remarkable color homogeneity and workability, Skako officials note. One RTX 750 mixer will be installed in a Smeet Precast curb and special products line, equipped with a Forest Wetpress. The second RTX 750 and Atlantis mixers will produce face and base mixes on a paver and block line running KVM machinery.
As the Smeet Precast operation takes shape, Italy’s Styl-Comp, known for its use of highly specialized, fine aggregate architectural precast panels, is preparing to deploy a RTX 1500. Equal to delivering very homogenous batches of concrete in swift, precise sequences, the model has a conical pan and stirrer to meet Styl-Comp performance specifications. A fast-moving tool, the stirrer ensures an extremely efficient decomposition of the different aggregates and cement lumps.
Rounding out charter Rotoconix users is Russia’s Zavod Zhelezobetonnykh Stroitelnykh Konstruktsy, for whom Skako is helping ramp up a new factory in the city of Samara. Scheduled over multiple phases, it promises to be one of the most advanced, versatile and modern concrete operations to date, producing architectural sandwich panels among a wide range of elements. Skako will equip the operation with a Rotoconix 2250 and three Atlantis 3000 planetary mixers. — Skako Inc., San Diego, 858/271 7341; www.skako.com
STIRRING SUCCESS
Skako Concrete’s Rotoconix works material in all dimensions, vertically and horizontally, eliminating any dead zones that may occur during the mixing process. The rotating mixer pan’s conical shape ensures a uniform mixing quality across a large range of the filling. The mixer is efficient for batches from 10 percent to 100 percent of the vessel’s nominal size—a crucial feature as it enables the production of both high quality face and base mixes.
The rotating (reversible) mixer pan moves material to the stirrer, whose high speed ensures concrete is thoroughly worked, fully disintegrating sand, pigment and cement agglomerations. Trials have shown Rotoconix mixers can achieve greater compressive strengths with a given amount of cement, Skako engineers note. As a result, they offer interested parties the option of sending their own material to a test facility to compare specimens cast with existing and Rotoconix mixers—establishing a basis for analyzing the latter series’ cost/benefit features.