Orange crush: Stavola Contracting's new impactor reduces overtime costs and improves productivity

Pit & Quarry, Nov, 2004 by Rick Zettler

When your company runs the largest impact-crushing recycle yard on the East Coast, has 10 asphalt plants that consume large volumes of RAP, and operates a highway and heavy contracting business that requires thousands of tons of recycled concrete for its municipal and private customers, then you have to have a big crusher to keep up with demand. Even though Tinton Falls, N.J.-based Stavola Contracting had a high-production impact crusher, the company's appetite for recycled material was much greater than its existing impactor could deliver in an eight-hour day.

So Rick Stavola, president of the 50-year-old, family operated contracting business, faced a dilemma. Would he continue to pay large sums of overtime expenses to his employees to produce more than 250,000 tons of recycled concrete and asphalt annually, or would he make the investment in an ultra-high-production impactor and circuit to keep pace with consumption? "We were running the Tinton Falls crushing circuit 10 to 12 hours per day, five to six days per week just to keep up with demand," Stavola says.

After some market research on megaproduction impactors, Stavola found a solution to his problem. It was in the form of a colossal horizontal-shaft impact crusher from Eagle Crusher Co. and its dealer, Capitol Equipment. It would easily crush enough material to feed Stavola Contracting's huge need for recycled materials, and even leave room for expansion.

Big impact

Stavola Contracting's previous crushing circuit at its Tinton Falls facility included a horizontal-shaft impact crusher with a 56-in. x 35-in. feed opening. Although crushing up to 300 tph, it could just not produce enough spec recycled material in an eight-hour day.

The company's researched revealed several brand options for impactors that offered the production capacities it needed. However, Stavola Contracting decided to go with Eagle Crusher, with whom it already had a positive, long-term relationship--even though another manufacturer offered an impactor for $100,000 less.

"We already have UltraMax 1400-45 impactor circuits at our two other recycling facilities, and we use a portable 1200-25 closed-circuit crusher for our contract crushing. Eagle Crusher Co. and their dealer [Capitol Equipment] have supported our other crushers very well and have earned our trust," Stavola says.

After considering Stavola Contracting's needs, Capitol Equipment recommended the UltraMax UM69 impactor for the Tinton Falls facility. The behemoth horizontal-shaft impact crusher has an enormous 69-in. wide by 42-in. high feed opening, which easily devours large 24-in. -x- 36-in. feed material.

The 56-in.- by 68-in. solid-steel rotor lies at the heart of the three-stage crushing action, and the impactor is capable of producing between 400 to 600 tph. Stavola Contracting currently operates its UM69 at 500 tph. With the industry's heaviest rotor, the impactor provides optimum penetration and energy to deliver efficient initial reduction, up to a 24:1, without sacrificing the impact forces necessary for secondary reduction. Even with the large feed material encountered at the Tinton Falls facility, Stavola estimates the impactor crushes more than 85 percent of the feed to a 1.5-in. minus spec product on the first pass.

Two Cat 980 loaders with 7.5-cu.-yd. buckets strain to keep the impactor's 19-cu.-yd. feed hopper filled with material. "The UM69 keeps our loader operators moving to keep up with it," Stavola says. The all-electric circuit is powered by a 300-hp motor. Once crushed, the recycled material outlets onto a 48-in. x 40-ft. discharge conveyor, which includes an in-line Dings magnet separator at the conveyor's end to remove ferrous material from the final product.

Crushed material is sorted by an Eagle Crusher 6-ft. x 20-ft., triple-deck screening plant. Oversized material not passing through the top and middle screen decks is retuned to the impactor for further sizing. Material passing through the middle and bottom screen decks is stockpiled as final product. The entire circuit, including the BTI breaker mounted to the hopper to prevent material bridging, is operated by a single person in the control tower.

Efficient operation

Through a collaborative effort between Stavola Contracting and Capitol Equipment, the circuit's design was laid out for efficiency and to lower costs. According to Bob Mrozinski, territory manager for Capitol Equipment, "We raised all of the circuit's major components 2 ft. by using Sona-Tube bases to help keep the crushing area clean."

Since installing the new UM69 impact crusher and circuit, which began operation in June, Stavola's plan has been realized. Significant overtime hours are now a thing of the past with the new crusher's increased production. According to Stavola, "We now run the crusher approximately four and a half days a week and only eight hours per day, eliminating the need for overtime."

A steel "stop-plate," an engineered attachment to the feed hopper, acts as a stop for loaders, so material is dropped directly into the center of the hopper. "This eliminates wear on the hopper's sides and reduces bridging," Mrozinski says.