Product Specification

Production Process

All the required components of the main board processing line are supplied by Chinese manufactures. In addition they provide all the ancillary equipment such as mixers. MagCrete will specify American made high efficiency motors for both power efficiency and furture part replacement or service requirements. All ancillary equipment such as mixers, sanding machines and palletizers will be purchased in the US.

Raw Material Delivery

Raw materials arrive at the plant via truck and rail transport in a variety of forms and packaging. MgO powder is delivered via pneumatic trailer and piped into outside 150-ton mobile silos called a pig or guppy trailer. MgCl₂ is delivered in liquid tanker truck and piped into an outside 32,000-gallon vertical tank farm. Wood chips, the largest commodity is delivered in modular containers and stockpiled outside the plant. The comparably smaller balance of raw materials, are deliver in a bulk or standard bag format and stored inside the plant on pallets. All the materials are sampled as they arrive and sent to the lab to maintain quality control.

Mixing and Batching Platform

A steel superstructure of several 1,000 sq. ft. sits above the beginning of the board processing line. This elevated platform or second level is where all the recipe ingredients for the board is collected, batched and mixed. Ingredients arrive at the platform via fluid piping, pneumatic or screw conveyor into batch containers such as 5-ton silos and tanks. Any bagged material for the recipe is opened on the ground floor in a bag-breaking machine and conveyed up to the intermediate storage on the platform.

Ingredients are weighted and measured in batches and mixed in alternating mixers. The recipe is then dumped into an elongated funnel opening on the platform floor that gravity feeds the mixture onto PVC sheets moving forward on the board processing line below. Large quantities of the mixture cannot be made or stored even for short period of times due to the chemical reactions that start to take place immediately. At the start of the board processing line PVC panels are robotically removed from a stack and placed on the board processing line.

Board Processing Line

The board machine system is overall 160 ft long with all components.

Forming

After receiving the board mixture on the PVC sheets the mixture is squeezed through pinch rollers that determine the boards thickness. These rollers can be adjusted to a variety of spacing providing the boards final thickness.

Fabric Sheets

Spindles above the board processing line hold spools of meshed fiberglass or basalt fiber material that are rolled out into the board mixture. This adds strength to the board and multiple layers of mesh material can even make the board bullet proof.

Cutting

The boards progress down the line and are cut into specified lengths matching the underlying PVC panel. The cut board lengths are then ejected into a drying tray rack that typical holds 18 PVC trays and preformed boards.

Drying Tray Racks

A rectangular well at the end of the board processing line holds a drying tray rack. The recessed drying rack in the well (L 2.8 x W 1.6 x H 1.5m, 3 ton capacity) elevates slot by slot receiving the PVC loaded boards at the height of the board processing line. Once all the slots are filled, the loaded drying rack is removed and a new one recessed in the well for loading the next batch.

Maintenance/curing room

The Maintenance/Curing room is designed to handle production of 400 boards per hour and is 150' x 140' x 20' for a total of 420,000 cu.ft. This large room is humidity and temperature controlled providing ideal conditions for the boards to complete curing. Temperature and humidity are crucial factors in curing a MgO board. If drying times are prolonged by high humidity and low temperatures production will be stalled waiting for boards to dry in the Maintenance/Curing room. Therefore good environmental control is necessary to produce a high quality board and maintain production efficiencies. Environmental operating efficiencies can be maintained between the Maintenance/Curing Room and by effective computerized control of temperature and humidity in these areas in respect to the fluctuations of outside ambient temperature and humidity fluctuations. The temperature in the Maintenance/Curing room should be maintained at temperatures at between 100 and 104 degrees F. The relative humidity in the Maintenance/Curing room should be maintained at 50%.

Cutting/trimming

When the boards have cured they are removed from the maintenance/curing room and separated from the PVC panels that are then returned to the front of the board processing line. The rounded edges of the cured boards and then trimmed square to complete the boards final dimensions. Optionally, depending on the boards market application they are processed through a industrial wide belt sander for a smooth finish on one side. The trimmings are pulverized and collected with all the dust from cutting and sanding and returned to the mixing and batching platform for recycling. Two edge cutting machines be used to trim the boards. The required workshop space is 1,100 square ft.

Samples of board material (trimmings) are collected periodically and taken to the lab for evaluation.

Packaging

The finished boards are then palletized in a palletizing machine and stretch hood wrapped in bundles of xx boards per pallet. For overall product management and quality control board packages are labeled (lot numbered) per the quality control standards and moved to either indoor warehousing or outside storage area

In contrast to conventional packaging solutions, the stretch hood wrapping machine is able to use cost-effective stretch film and minimise the amount of film used by its film stretching process. the products are protected against dirt and moisture from 5 sides. For each format in mixed product operations, the film is stretched in horizontal and transverse direction according to any coordinates needed. This way, optimum load safety can be obtained. Optionally, the film can be stretched all the way beneath the pallet ("Understretch method"), or it can be used as a steady belt around the pallet board to enable reliably the storage in a high-bay warehouse.