The impactful crushing legacy of Hazemag – Extractive Industries Association of NT

Hazemag has a long and proud history with its impact crusher. Image: Hazemag

Exploring the history and current role of Hazemag’s impact crushers in the quarrying industry.

Hazemag’s impact crushers are more than just tools. They are a homage to the company’s history and have come to define it as an industry leader.

“Every crusher manufacturer has their legacy machine … with Hazemag, it is the impact crusher, we are the go-to company for impact crushing,” Hazemag SEA business development manager Marcus Benn told Quarry.

“It is our legacy machine, it is what our company was formed around, and we were the ones who designed it from scratch, and we’ve developed it over time.”

Hazemag has built its impact crusher based on the philosophy that the operator should be able to crush rock in a manner that provides consistency across all facets.

The company estimates that in the last 80 years since its impact crusher was created, more than 75,000 of its impact crushers have been sold worldwide. Some of the company’s impact crushers from as far back as 1950 are still in operation today.

Hazemag developed its impact crusher out of the embers of World War II.

The Andreas Crusher was designed in response to Germany’s need to process large amounts of rubble aggregate after the war to reuse in other ways and remove it from central areas.

Over time, the impact crusher has been modified and adapted to keep it at the forefront of the industry.

The impact crusher’s role has remained largely the same at a core level: to help operators create a material in the correct size and shape to suit the required specification.

“It is all about getting a pile of rock at the end of the day that you can sell to help operators create a material in the correct size and shape to suit the required specification, and the higher the quality, the higher the price,” Benn said.

Hazemag impact crushers are used across several sectors in Australia, ranging from quarrying to recycled materials and waste.

A traditional crushing set-up, which uses gyratories and jaw crushers as primaries and cone crushers as secondary and tertiary, delivers a two-to-four reduction ratio in each stage of crushing. According to the company, the Hazemag impact crusher can achieve 10 to 1 reduction.

“You can actually get away with two (Hazemag) impact crushers instead of the three or four jaw and cone crushers used in hard rock crushing,” Benn said.

“Your footprint is smaller, and it means you are a much greener site, which is important, especially in Australia.

“By going to two crushing stations instead of three or four, you don’t have the capital outlay of the steelwork, conveyors and infrastructure. It is a lot cheaper to get to the end result.”

Hazemag has constantly evolved its impact crusher over the years.Image: Hazemag

REWARDING ROTOR

Hazemag has always focused on the rotor of its impact crushers, and for good reason. No part is more tested during a crusher’s lifespan than the rotor.

This is especially true in primary crushing, which requires heavy-duty rotors with high inertia to break down the material.

“It is the heart of the crusher. It is like our heart that is pumping blood through the body. That is what the rotor is to the crusher,” Hazemag and allmineral managing director of Australia Teddy Craies said.

“You’ve got the blowbars and all the different vessels that fit into the crusher, but the rotor is doing all the work.”

The GSK Rotor is one of Hazemag’s innovative patented designs, designed for the rigours of impact crushing.

The GSK Rotor is constructed using cast and welded steel where the individual cast discs are welded to the rotor body. This enables the rotor to accommodate the proprietary blowbars as primary crushing is initiated.

The blowbars are locked into position via wedges and a massive backing bar, which can be easily removed to accommodate changing the blow bars when required.

Hazemag has also designed a blow bar lifting device, hydraulic clamping device, and wedge extraction tool to help change the blowbars when required.

“It makes the removal of the blowbar easier and creates a safe work environment,” Craies said.

By designing the rotor body this way, the blowbars are fully secured and offer a 50 per cent utilisation factor.

The high utilisation factor results from the forward design profile, which enables the blowbars to deliver consistent gradation.

“A lot of design has gone into the blowbar itself to get maximum throughput and life out of those blowbars,” Benn said.

“For different types of materials, we have different types of blowbars and different types of options we can use there.”

An example of Hazemag’s rotor innovation is its dual-rotor system, which is showcased in its HPC primary crusher.

Because the dual rotor delivers a high level of reduction, it has become a popular choice in the cement industry.

“(The HPC) is two stages in one, it can give you almost 20-to-1 reduction ratio, and it is ideal for cement,” Benn said.

“(The HPC allows you to) go from a primary feed all the way to a ball-mill feed through one machine, which is practically unheard of.”

CONNECTED

One of the most significant design changes to Hazemag’s primary impact crushers is the use of technology to streamline operations seamlessly.

Hazemag launched its HAZconnect system as a fully integrated software solution. The platform enables operators to control their Hazemag equipment from the software platform.

Hazemag’s updated HAZconnect system enables site managers and operators to access data on all Hazemag machines.

This data can generate tailored reports with production data to enable site managers to make informed decisions that maximise crushing performance. The digital maintenance platform allows operators to perform preventative maintenance using detailed data insights from the dashboard on HAZconnect.

Recently, Craies and Benn took a customer from Southeast Asia to see the HAZconnect system work in real-time with Hazemag equipment.

The customer, who needed 28-32 people to run their quarry, was shocked to turn up on-site and see just two people operating it. The other six were focused on using the loaders, while the duo used the HAZconnect platform to run the quarry.

“(The customer) turned around to us, and they saw the HAZconnect and said we were far ahead of the opposition,” Benn said.

“They said they were amazed at what the HAZconnect system can actually do.”

“It enables them to have the adjustability and get the product size, and you can control the process as well as the safety features,” Craies said.

All of this comes with full support from Hazemag via its Australian facilities. It manufactures, delivers commissioning and installation support from its Western Australia base, and maintains spare stock across all of its crushing equipment. The company also has a warehouse in Brisbane for spare parts and a warehouse in Canning Vale.

“The infrastructure is here, the people are here. The service is here, and it is ongoing,” Craies said. •

For more information, visit hazemag.com

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