Inside an asphalt plant dryer drum - photo

[Jon]

Inside an asphalt plant dryer drum.

Fullsize image: https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/h...m_fullsize.jpg




Previously:

Asphalt excavation machine - GIF
Leveling recycled asphalt on a road - GIF

[nova_robotics]

Well that's cool. I've seen other dryers at other plants, but never asphalt. Neat!

[Frank S]

I've worked a few shutdowns at Lime and cement plants where we had to replace the clinker chains in the drying kilns those things were a hot humid fill your lungs nightmare even while wearing breathing equipment you had the feeling you were inhaling some very bad stuff.
I can't imagine having to weld new separator plates in that thing.

[skibo]

I have had plenty of experience in lime kilns at the pulp mill I worked for 40 years! Weather I was shooting out lime rings or replacing fire brick, there is no fun in this work at all, they are the driest places on Earth and still hot due holding it's heat! You can get nasty chemical burns from anywhere you might be sweating and the lime dust reacts to make caustic,BAD Stuff!

[Frank S]

I have had plenty of experience in lime kilns at the pulp mill I worked for 40 years! Weather I was shooting out lime rings or replacing fire brick, there is no fun in this work at all, they are the driest places on Earth and still hot due holding it's heat! You can get nasty chemical burns from anywhere you might be sweating and the lime dust reacts to make caustic,BAD Stuff!

Maybe the humid was just what we felt from our own sweat in our PPE They wouldn't let us enter the kilns until the temp got down so somewhere around 130f had to wear sealed face gear with breathing umbilical air supply I couldn't understand the requirement to trim my beard to nearly a shaved face since we wore a sock over hour heads anyway. almost like that of a diving suit. But they said a couple years before during a shut down the welders just wore paper masks or painter's respirators some wound up with lung damage so the safety folks weren't taking any chances.
I liked shut downs as long as I could work up on the hill fabricating pipes for air ducts but hated anything to do with going inside the kiln tube.

[skibo]

It was around 1976 to 80 that I had to go in one, but I always wore two paper dust masks and a painters head gear to help(not really), if you sweated you got burns. The lime stayed hot about an inch below the surface, if we had to replace the brick we ran the lime totally out into the chain conveyor. Just working around a lime kiln is just plain crappy!

[Frank S]

It was around 1976 to 80 that I had to go in one, but I always wore two paper dust masks and a painters head gear to help(not really), if you sweated you got burns. The lime stayed hot about an inch below the surface, if we had to replace the brick we ran the lime totally out into the chain conveyor. Just working around a lime kiln is just plain crappy!

Not sure how much difference in a lime kiln and a cement kiln there is Only worked at 1 chemical lime plant back in 70 or 71 when they were building the one at Clifton Tx and then was only involved in running the 4" and smaller air piping from the compressor station throughout the plant must have been 500 miles of welded and threaded piping to run.
My work in a kiln was at the TXI cement plant in Midlothian TX about 600 ft long 10 or 12 ft diameter I worked there several times some times a few days at a time and others for a couple months at a time the first time there was barely there long enough to cover the 10 million dollar liability ins. premium they required for a contract welder to have. The only way it really worked out was when they contacted me they wanted 6 to 8 rig welders so I bought a blanket policy to cover the other guys as if they worked for me then charged them accordingly.
the worst part about driving our rigs around the cement plant was after working a 16 hour shift before we left we needed to visit the wash rack and give our rigs a vinegar douche then wash and wax them otherwise you could never get the dust off the paint