How to warm up, start up your HMA plant in sequence for the day’s best productivity
Step five is to start up the slat conveyor. With this component running, open the control house door or step outside and listen to it running. Listen for anything that sounds “off” or “different” from other mornings. All photos courtesy of Eagle Crusher, Galion, Ohio, and Tresco Companies, Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania
Start Your Asphalt Plant Motors
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BY A.J. RONYAK
With the proliferation of automation and robust plant controls, a newbie plant operator should be able to step into the control house and click the mouse over the button labeled “Startup Plant” to make the day begin. But there are steps he needs to make sure have happened first. Most asphalt plant controls manufacturers and plant original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) who build controls into their systems will have the series of motors coming online in a logical pattern that keeps your operator from sending dry rock to the silo or blowing up the baghouse, but does your operator know why?
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Does he understand that the asphalt cement (AC) pump should warm up and circulate before delivering liquid to ensure there are no slugs of cool AC traveling around? There’s theory and logic behind starting up an asphalt plant. Bringing the air compressor up before throwing a flame in the drum matters. Whether you’ve customized the controls so plant startup requires multiple clicks of the mouse—giving your operator time to listen to components and feel the vibration of slingers and conveyors—or you’ve purchased a system that starts with one click and moves through the startup protocol on its own, you
