Cement
Dr. Rajah Sir Muthiah Chettiar's urge to contribute to the nation building cause combined with his business acumen culminated in establishing the company "M/s. Chettinad Cement Corporation Limited" in 1962 to cater to growing demands of Cement in the country. The manufacturing unit located at Puliyur, Karur an Industrially backward area in Tamil Nadu commenced production in April 1968. Further Green filed plant at Karikkali, Dindigul District was commissioned in October 2001.

PRODUCTS

MANUFACTURING DETAILS
From a modest beginning of 2 Lac tonnes capacity per annum, it was gradually increased to 2.2 Million tonnes in the year 2001. Presently both the plants employs the Modern Dry Process Technology. It has most Advanced, Sophisticated, Computer controlled state-of-the-art LOESCHE MILL for Grinding Raw Meal, LOESCHE lignite mill (First of its kind in India), a five stage pre-heater Kiln & Electronic packing plant. Equipped with centralised control room for process control, the advanced instrumentation with Expert system (Link Man) and elaborate display screen give up-to-the minute information on the production process so that any deviation can be promptly corrected.

Mines

Puliyur works

Limestone is sourced from our mines at Palayam which is located 40kms. from the factory. The mines are equipped with the latest Machinery and Technology including for Sequential Blasting. The mined limestone is then crushed through primary and secondary Crusher. The crushed limestone is then transported to the factory on our own Metre Gauge Track.

Karikkali works

Limestone Mines are located at about 3 kms. from the factory. The mines are fully mechanized and has also a terminator for mechanized breaking of individual boulders. The Crusher is located at Mines and crushed limestone is transported by long belt conveyors to factory.

Stacker and Reclaimer

Puliyur works

The crushed limestone is then sent through the X-Ray Analyser and approved for further process only on meeting quality standards. The raw material is then diverted to the Stacker and Reclaimer, as they form the backbone of the Quality control. The stacked raw material is sent to raw mill storage hopper for further fine grinding and monitored to meet out stringent quality norms.

Karikkali works

The entire quantity of crushed limestone passes through the online cross belt analysers and is stacked at the pile in the factory. Three numbers of separate stacker-reclaimer are available with truck tipplers for proper stacking and

reclaiming of corrective raw materials, fuels and additives. Stacker Reclaimers help to achieve high degree of stacking and ensure maximum level of consistency for the input materials to raw mill, coal mill and cement mill.

Raw Mill

Puliyur Works

The limestone from the reclaimer is mixed with additive of Bauxite and Iron ore and transported to the vertical roller mill through weigh feeders (which control the additive addition). The operator takes corrective steps on viewing any deviation. The Loesche-German make Vertical roller mill is similar in principle to the Tilting Grinder with Gigantic Roller and operated by the hydraulic system, to give fine blended raw material. From the Loesche mill , the raw material is then taken to two silos to produce variety of cement.

Karikkali works

Pre-stacked limestone of stockpile is ground in the VRM along with corrective materials with required ratios are made to produce raw meal and that is stored in Blending cum Storage Silo. There are separate hoppers with weigh feeders for continuous and regulated addition of each raw material. The mix passes through the cross belt analyser which analyze the mix chemistry and solve the mix ratio every minute to have very good consistency in the raw mix.

Kiln

Puliyur Works

The finely grounded, blended raw material is sent to a five stage kiln. Kiln is a key process in the manufacture of cement where the calcinations & chemical reaction takes place. Coal fired burner (controlled through latest solid flow feeder) is used to heat the air to 1400o C and is fed from one end of the kiln. The Data Accusation and Control center meticulously monitor the entire process including the temperature.

Karikkali works

Raw meal extracted from silo is fed to the kiln where it is sintered at about 1400o C to clinker. This process is called pyroprocessing which consists of a five stage suspension preheaters with precalciner, the kiln and the clinker cooler. Clinker cooler with CIS and CFG for maximum heat recuperation and the cooled clinker is transported to a storage silo.

Cement Mill

Puliyur works

The clinker is then ground, depending upon the grade, the additive is added. For all grades of cement 5% gypsum is added to control setting of cement. We use Japanese Technology in fine grinding with Vertical Roller mill from Onode Kobe, Japan, Laser particle size analyser is used to monitor fineness of the cement for yielding very good quality cement.

Karikkali works

Finally, grinding is done in OK Vertical Roller Mill for optical particle size distribution and less power consumption with excellent ease of operation for feeding, grinding and classification. To maintain quality of various types/grades of cement, there are separate hoppers with weigh feeders for the addition of fly ash, gypsum, etc. Quality of final product is monitored and controlled every hour by testing samples in the XRF analyser. Final products are stored in cement silos.

Packing House

Puliyur woks

The four automatic packing machines have been installed, together they have the capacity to deliver 4800 tonnes per day of packed cement. These packing equipments are very accurate and any fault can be rectified as each bag is verified before the next is filled. These are also cross-checked by the Electronic weighing scale used to note the load carried by the lorries.

Karikkali works

There are 2 nos. of Electronic Rotopacker which automatically pack cement in bags, each with a capacity of 150 tons/hour. Packed cement is loaded into trucks/wagons with automatic loading machines.

Ready Mix Concrete

Ready Mix, Chettinad is rapidly growing member of Chettinad Cement Corporation, produced by qualified concrete experts from a central batch and mix plant and transport directly to the sites by specially designed transit mixers. The plant is strategically located in Coimbatore with an easily reachable distance for Pollachi, Southern Coimbatore and Palakad. The commitment and attention of
the people at Ready Mix is a clear indication to the wide acceptance of its products. Having the inherent advantage of producing high quality cement, Ready mix Chettinad is perfectly placed to suit the applications of customers.

The plant is having 30 Cu.M per hour production capacity having 0.5Cu.M batch capacity with 6 Cu.M of concrete transport by transit Mixer. The plant is completely automated with all sophistication imported from Germany. Concrete grade from M15 to M55 are supplied to the most stringent specifications.

With the present response from the customer for Ready Mix concrete, the company is venturing for six more Ready Mix Concrete plants in and around Karnataka and Tamil Nadu to serve the customers with quality and timely delivery.

Captive Power plant

Apart from cement, Captive Power Plant of 15MW has been installed at karikkali to meet the power demand for the cement plants.

High efficiency with excellent heat recovery boiler supplied by Thermax is being used to generate steam with latest fluidized bed coal combustion system. The boiler is capable of producing steam at 68 TPH at 510 oC with 87 Kg/cm2 pressure.

Latest steam turbine with impulse type having three uncontrolled extractions supplied by Toyo Denki Power systems convert the steam to Power by means of alternator through speed reductions.
New concept of Air cooled condenser is being introduced by eliminating the conventional cooling tower for steam condensing help in reducing 10 times the water consumption as compared to normal systems supplied by GEA -India.

Water treatment plant being most vital for the successful operation of the boiler and Turbine is having latest Reverse Osmosis plant to get boiler quality water.

Entire power plant is operated through Distributed Control systems with variable frequency drives with advanced instrumentation.