Concrete batching at Madagascar port development

Keeping with production demands, a Eurotec

The project’s Japanese contractor was already familiar with the ECO60, as it has been using the same model with confidence on previous projects. So, when a new plant was needed for the port extension, it was an easy choice to purchase the same model – designed and manufactured by leading OEM Lintec & Linnhoff – owner of the Eurotec brand. Producing up to 60 m3/h of readymix concrete in 1 m3 batches, plant owners can customise the number of aggregate bins (ranging from three to six inline bins) according to a project’s requirements. In the case of the Japanese contractor, both units are fitted with five aggregate bins to handle more complex concrete mix designs, such as those employed at Toamasina.

Masters of mixing

A key feature of the Eurotec ECO60 is its twin-shaft mixer – 100% manufactured in Italy. Located at 90-degree intervals, the doublemixing spiral paddle structure is said to deliver greater abrasion resistance and production performance when compared to conventional mixers. This is a valuable advantage when blending materials with particle sizes from 120 mm to 150 mm.

On the go, the consistency of the mix is ensured by the weighing and batching systems, which are metered using load cells. This is managed with Eurotec’s own in-house ECS process control system software, which runs on Windows OS for fully automatic operations.

Quick deployment

On the Toamasina project, the ECO60’s modularised structure enabled fast installation and easy maintenance with the plant producing consistently on the various stages assigned to the contractor, who’s scope of works was completed in July 2022. The feedback indicates exceptional plant availability and downstream readymix quality, so crucial for enabling sustainable infrastructure projects.

In the meantime, other phases of the port upgrade are ongoing. To date, port handling capacity has risen from just 60 t per day to 2 500 t per day. In addition, bottlenecks that would see full containers languishing for an average of 20 days has been eliminated.

Today, Toamasina handles 90% of Madagascar’s container traffic and more than 80% of all the country’s trade traffic, making it a leading regional hub with connections to Africa, Asia, Europe and the Gulf states.