Largest AAC production line worldwide
In Çorlu, in the vicinity of Istanbul, the world‘s largest AAC production line is getting closer to completion and will produce the first cake at the end of March 2011. Owner of this new Wehrhahn superSMART plant is AKG Gazbeton, one of the leading AAC producers in Turkey with its headquarters in Izmir.
AKG started producing AAC in 1990, named Cementas Hebel at that time, and set up the second Hebel plant in Kirikkale. The total production capacity of the existing plants comes close to 1 million m³/year. With this background and having in mind a new production site close to the heavily populated Istanbul area, it was clear that it needed to be big again, very big!
After investigating carefully on possible suppliers, AKG considered Wehrhahn as the most experienced and most innovative supplier of AAC plants. AKG‘s experts and the Wehrhahn project team finally agreed on a detailed plant setup with remarkable data:
» 384 cakes/day, each 5.4 m³, resulting in 2,074 m³/day
» cycle time for each cake 3.3 minutes
» 8 autoclaves, each 2.9 m in diameter and 50 m long
The plant will start to produce blocks. However, the future extension for production of reinforced elements is considered in the plant design and concept.
After the contract was signed in 2007, the detailed plant design was elaborated by Wehrhahn and the manufacturing of the Wehrhahn superSMART machinery started. A significant number of pieces of equipment was made according to Wehrhahn drawings and specifications in Turkey.
In 2008, civil works started on site in Çorlu. Everything worked according to schedule, the factory building was erected, foundation works started, everyone has been enthusiastic and looking forward to the installation and start-up of the new plant.
Unfortunately the financial crisis also hit the building industry in Turkey. It was decided to delay the project and wait for better times to come.
In autumn 2010, the project was continued and very soon the installation of machinery and equipment started. Under Wehrhahn‘s supervision, AKG engineers and fitters are in charge of putting machines in place, installing cable connections, testing all features and automatic sequences.
All Wehrhahn machines are generally completely assembled and thoroughly tested before delivery. This allowed fast installation on site, and connections could be immediately established between the fully cabled Wehrhahn machines and the control panels of the Wehrhahn automation system for AAC plants.
For start-up, a competent Wehrhahn team is on site and will take care of fine tuning of the automation and training of operators, and will assist the customers in mix design and quality control.
It is expected that in 2011 step one with five autoclaves will be in full production, and premium-quality AAC blocks economically produced on a Wehrhahn superSMART 2000 plant will be available on the Turkish market.
