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Placement of concrete with iron
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Tons of garbage dumped onto the tipping floor. Metal and glass pieces - gouge the floor. Heavy front-end loaders drag and push the refuse across the floor - in a constant pattern of activity. The tipping floor in a solid waste handling facility gets more abuse on a daily basis than any other type of industrial floor, and having a floor that functions properly can be the difference between profit and loss.
Downtime to repair a tipping floor is not an option for facilities where revenues depend on how much tonnage is processed per day and any work stoppage simply translates into lost revenue or opens the door for a competitor. A floor that can withstand harsh daily abuse, offers a long working life and can be installed with minimal downtime has been the quest of solid waste facility owners.
Many of these facility operators have found the answer to their tipping floor problems in Structural Preservation System's (SPS) Delta TopTM iron aggregate flooring system. The Delta Top floor topping system, a combination of recycled iron shavings and concrete, provides four-to-eight times the abrasion resistance of regular concrete, and eliminates the need for costly shutdowns during floor repair.
Tons of Abuse
According to Jim Andrews, general manager of SPS's Delta Pacific Division, there is no doubt that these tipping floors take a lot of abuse, but there are a variety of factors that determine how long a concrete floor will last.
"The biggest determinant is TPD or tons-per-day; how many tons-per-day of refuse a facility is processing," noted Andrews. "If a facility is handling 500 tons-per-day or more, that tipping floor is taking a lot of abuse."
It is the tons-per-day charge or tipping fee that makes the floor repair situation so crucial.
With tipping fees ranging from $49 per ton and up, the math shows that facilities who handle more than 500 TPD are going to be losing out on thousands of dollars for every day they are shutdown to repair the tipping floor.
"If you are a high-tonnage facility, then you are measuring the lifecycle of your floor in months due to the abuse," said Andrews. "If you have to shutdown every couple of years for up to 14 days to replace the concrete floor, how much money are you losing?"
Because of the high-traffic patterns and high refuse tonnage, every component in a solid waste handling facility is in a constant state of wear and is also a good indicator of how fast the floor is wearing. Tractor tires wear out quickly due to the rubbish they run over as the floors are cleared. The scraping of a front-end loader's bucket along the floor means that the blades must be frequently replaced.
No Time to Waste
As Andrews tells his customers, "If you are buying tires, brakes, clutches, and blades for your material handling equipment, why are you surprised that you have to spend money for your floor?"
But it's not just the loss of tipping fees that a solid waste handling facility has to worry about; there is also the problem of figuring out what to do with the waste stream. A high-tonnage facility cannot just tell its customers that it can't take their refuse for up to 14 days while the floor is being repaired. The waste has to be properly disposed of and that customer, who will have to go to a competitive facility, might not return.
Delta Top's iron floor solution allows a facility to continue operating while the worn part of the floor is being replaced. In facilities that have several refuse ports, one floor surface can be repaired while another is still being used.
"You don't have to rip up the entire floor; it can be installed right on top of the existing concrete," explained Andrews. "We prepare the area to be overlaid and bond the new topping to the base slab. In most cases, this can be done in one weekend. If we pour on Saturday, you are typically back rolling on Monday."
Andrews acknowledges that for some solid waste handling operations, even shutting down for one day during the week, while the floor is being repaired, can be a detriment.
"I've had facility owners tell me, ‘I do not want to tell my customers they can't come here during the week. I've worked very hard to capture these customers and I don't want to lose them,' " Andrews said. "So, what we do is surgically repair the damaged floor areas while the plant is up-and-running. "And, we do it in a very safe and efficient way. There is a lot of pre-planning with our team and with the customer's employees to make sure that everything runs smoothly."
Getting the Job Done
Jim McMichael, the Waste Engineering Manager for the Southeastern Public Service Authority (SPSA), can attest to SPS's ability to "get the job done." SPSA, a comprehensive waste disposal agency that services the southeastern part of Virginia, recently had a Delta Top floor installed on parts of its Refuse-Derived Fuel (RFD) processing plant in Portsmouth, Va.
"We run very big CAT 980G loaders on these floors," says McMichael. "Because we dispose of all the trash for six cities and two counties in Virginia, downtime is very precious to us.
Like virtually all solid waste operations, the floors of the authority's transfer stations are concrete. But even with a 1-foot structural slab, heavy front-end loaders and tractors, metal and glass can wear away up to 1-inch of floor every year in operations that handle more than 500 tons per day. Facilities that process 2,000 tons or more a day may lose even more.
Loathe to endure the two weeks required for surface preparation, removing the old concrete, putting down a bonding agent, placing fresh concrete, and letting it cure for seven days, McMichael is patching floors with a combination of recycled iron shavings and cement called Delta Top. The product's installer, SPS, says it provides four to eight times the impact and abrasion resistance of concrete.
Most recently, McMichael specified the product for a 10,000-square-foot repair. Because the product allows facilities to continue operating while the worn part of the floor is being replaced, one floor surface can be repaired while another is still being used.
Having completed his third project using Delta Top, McMichael feels the additional investment is justified by not having to shut down.
Andrews estimates that SPSA's handling of over 700,000-tons-per-year makes them one of the biggest solid waste facilities in the U.S. and therefore, its tipping floors, one of which is 160-foot. x 300-foot., also get the most abuse of any facility.
McMichael especially likes SPS' no-nonsense approach to installation procedures. As he puts it: "They come in, they do the job, they get out. They give you a schedule and they stick to it. I've always been very impressed with their workmanship."
Iron Flooring vs. Concrete
But just how does Delta Top differ from plain concrete?
"Typically, concrete is made up of cement and an aggregate," explained John Weisbarth of the North American Construction Products Div. for The Euclid Chemical Co., the manufacturer of Delta Top. "Although concrete floors have usually been specified for solid waste handling facilities, they do not hold up well under heavy abuse and are prone to cracking and fracturing.
"While Delta Top does have some aggregate, it is the reprocessed iron filings mixed in with a cement-rich concrete mix that provide the necessary abrasion- and impact-resistance needed for the floors in these facilities," said Weisbarth.
Experience shows that in heavier traffic transfer stations - greater than 500 tons per day - the floor can lose from one-half-inch to an inch of concrete per year. The structural base in these facilities can be anywhere from 8-to-12-inches of concrete, but it is the one-and-a-half to two-inches of concrete on the surface that is the most affected by wear from heavy front loaders and tractors, and tons of refuse dumped daily.
"In some facilities, especially those processing as much as 2,000-tons of waste per day, that top two-inches of concrete might have to be replaced every eight months," Weisbarth noted. "And if you are going to use concrete for floor repair, your facility can be out of operation for almost two weeks. This includes surface preparation, removing the old concrete, putting down a bonding agent, pouring the fresh concrete and letting it cure for seven days."
With minimal downtime for installation, a Delta Top floor can not only double or quadruple the life of a floor, it can also help you make sure that no business will be lost.
One Floor, One Solution
The way Andrews sees it, a facility has several pieces of equipment - tractors, garbage trucks, front-end loaders - and many employees, but "at the end of the day - they have only one floor, and waiting until the last minute to fix a floor problem is not a very cost-effective approach."
In an industry where even one day of downtime can affect the bottom line, the option of using Delta Top iron aggregate to repair a tipping floor can keep a solid waste handling facility in tip-top shape.
For more information, visit http://www.tippingfloors.com/ or contact Andrews at 1-800-903-3582 or jandrews@structural.net.