Concrete pipes and precast concrete products are the mainspecialties of M Con operating in Ontario through their fa-cility in Carp. M Con Products Inc. was established in 1989in Carp, Ontario, but its roots go back much further, all theway to 1956 when Central Precast Inc. was founded in Ottawa. Central Precast Inc. was established to service theOttawa and Eastern Ontario areas with high quality precastproducts. Included were circular maintenance holes, catchbasins and valve chambers. As the City of Ottawa and sur-rounding areas grew, so did the need for new and innova-tive sewer infrastructure products, M Con Products Inc. wasfounded with the aim to provide this fast growing marketwith high quality products on time and at a competitiveprice.

When it came time to replace M Con’s aging and under ca-pacity batch plant. M Con reached out to several major sup-pliers of batch plants. After a thorough review of the propos-als for the retrofit of the batching plant that feeds the factoryin Carp, including several trips to investigate solutions and

suppliers throughout North America and Europe, the man-agement at M Con selected the simple and efficient solutionproposed by the MCT Group. MCT’s custom design expertisewas clearly demonstrated throughout the preliminary designdevelopment. Along with ideas and knowledge acquiredfrom the various plants and factories visited during the pro-cess of selection of the suppliers, MCT’s convinced the most.

The complex project included the replacement of the com-bined aggregates and cement tower plant as well as the ag-gregates receiving hopper and bucket elevator. Along withthe six new aggregate storage hoppers, two new 180 m3 splitcement silos were also installed. The complex series of screwconveyors has the capacity to feed all four cements into eachof the three mixers, this is extremely important when blendingof various cements is required to meet the ever stringent de-sign specifications. Also part of the retrofit is the aggregateand cement dosing equipment and the concrete distributionsystem from the three planetary mixers to feed six productionpoints.

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M Con Products Inc. Upgrades its Concrete Batching Facility in Canada

MCT Group, Inc., 89521 Reno, NV, USA

Aerial view of M-Con factory in Carp, Ontario

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Further challenges for this project were: the location of thetower in the building layout, the connection with existing sup-porting framework and civil work. The timeframe for theretrofit, scheduled to be carried out during the winter shut-down of the factory added additional challenges for everyonebecause of the cold and snowy Ottawa winters.

These types of challenges are the specialty of MCT, and theirteam approached the project from the beginning with the aimto design a ‘modular’ solution in order to minimize the instal-lation time and the impact of this retrofit on the existingequipment. Immediately following the handshake for the con-tract, a team of engineers went to the site to inspect the plantand the structures to be recovered, to check and survey allthe dimensions for the customized design and to organize theinstallation.

The supply consisted of a new primary receiving hopper tobe installed in the existing pit, an 80’ bucket elevator with ag-gregates dispensing system by rotating conveyor, to the newaggregates storage tower with six compartments for approx-imately 450 ton total capacity, with extracting devices consist-ing of both clamshell gates and extracting conveyor belts. Theplant also consists of two aggregates and three cement weighscales with a combination of screws and conveyors to supplythe three planetary mixers. Concrete holding hoppers at each

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Pre-assembled tower lifting and completion of stair towerand bucket elevator

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of the mixer discharge gates and a series of conveyor beltswere used to supply concrete to all the production machines.Included in the project, the replacement of the access stairtower to the top of the aggregates storage and the completenew cladding of the tower, which supporting structure are in-tegrated in the plant itself. As typical for MCT, all the structuresand aggregates storage panels are hot dip galvanized.

The aggregates tower in particular is one of the masterpiecesof MCT’s design, with 50 years of experience in this field andhundreds of tower plants installed on every continent. Themodular design, uniquely developed in the MCT technical de-partments over 30 years ago, allows the installation of thepanels modules entirely on the ground, with minimal use oflifting equipment and in the safest way for the workers. Themodules are then coupled very quickly at no more than 3 mfrom the ground level, so to have the complete ‘cube’ pre-in-stalled on ground, and ready for the lift in its final positioningon the top of the lower structures with the need of importantcranes only for one day. The smart coupling with the lowerstructure is performed by a pin system, which secures the in-stallation in place for the whole aggregates storage module(in this case at M Con a lift of approx. 50 tons) very quick andsafe.

Additionally, all of the tower accessories are pre-installed atthe MCT factory first (where they are already wired and tested)including the aggregate dispensing system on the top of thetower, with switchboards and conveyors.

After the ‘big lift’ is completed, only the major power feedingconnections have to be performed and the whole system isnow ready for commissioning.

The cladding panels as well are pre-installed on the towerplant module while on ground before the lifting, leaving onlysome roof panels and trim pieces to be installed on the topof the plant when installed in place. This minimizes the issuesof installing the cladding panels at high elevations, which inenvironments such as Ontario during wintertime is a hugeadded value in the installation schedule.

Basically all the work required in the installation of the MCTtowers is then planned to be performed on ground, minimiz-ing all the activities at the elevations of these modules (usuallyover 25 m or 80’) to ensure the optimal and safe working en-vironment for every phase of the installation, as well as thequickest possible time for the plant commissioning.

The retrofit project also included the replacement of the au-tomation control system for the whole plant. As part of thecomplete package offered by MCT, the customized develop-ment of the control system was another key component of theproject. The MCT ‘Compumat’ platform integrates both thebatch plant and concrete distribution in the same control sys-tem and this special system developed for M Con is com-posed of a central ‘server’ station located in the central pro-duction office and six ‘satellite’ stations located at the produc-tion machines. This layout allows the operators working onthe production lines to deal with their portion of the controlthemselves, performing the concrete calls and all the opera-tions from their station. The central reporting platform thencollects all the process information and stores the data in the‘server’ station, which is also a supervision spot connected livewith all its ‘satellites’.

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Aggregates storage tower modules pre-assembled on ground

Interior of the building with cement dosing and concrete conveyor

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The automatic aggregates and cement loading systems havetheir independent control automations operated by a touch-screen interface and always connected with the central batch-ing system.

“MCT brought an innovative design solution, which satisfiedour complex operation. The overall design is robust, includingthe structure itself, galvanized steel used throughout and topelectrical components”, comments John Mion, Vice Presidentof M Con.

“MCT assembly and installation crews were very knowledge-able and experienced. As expected during a retrofit project,there were unforeseen challenges that arose. The MCT crewswere able to make modifications and decisions on site tokeep the project moving along.

The sales and ownership of MCT were always in contact forsupport throughout the project.

Through smart design, the retrofit enabled us to increase ouraggregate storage creating efficiencies in the overall produc-tion process. It also eliminated the need for aggregate stor-age bins we had on the ground outside the plant.”

“This is another key plant in Canada”, says Eng. AlessandroDiCesare, MCT General Manager for North America. “The na-ture of this project is the perfect platform for MCT to create astrong partnership with our customer, who becomes a crucialplayer in our team to develop new solutions based on thechallenges presented by his requirements. We at MCT en-courage and support these challenges, working to adapt ourexperience and solutions to the customer’s needs, not the

other way around. This ensures long lasting relationships withour clients, and in this case we are very pleased and proud towork with the Mion family.”

Once again, the MCT customized design skills both for hard-ware and software ensured a successful project, carried outunder important critical requirements such as: design chal-lenges, location of the project, scheduling and organizing ofspecial lifting equipment in addition to the timeframe and du-ration of the project during the cold winter season. �

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Sound out your ambitions

Measurement of the concrete manufacturing parameters

> Moisture measurement

> Management of the stock levels

of cement and admixtures

> Traceability of production

> Treatment of the concrete mixing plant wastewater:

• Concrete recovery

• Dehydration• Filtration• Neutralisation

HYDROSTOP

ZI des grands bois

49280 Saint Léger Sous CholetTel : +33 2 41 56 82 93

info@hydrostop.fr

Aggregates

Admixtures

Control Centre

CementsProduction unit

Storage areaWater treatment

www.hydrostop.fr

MCT Group, Inc.10285 Mott Dr89521 Reno, NV, USAT +1 775 313 0708F +1 775 242 3677mail@mct-usa.com www.mct-usa.com

M Con Products, Inc.2150 Richardson Side Road,Carp, Ontario, K0A 1L0, Canada www.mconproducts.com

FURTHER INFORMATION

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