Dynamix mixing plant commissioned to upgrade Frisch-beton Eberle production site

A Dynamix 2500 concrete mixing plant from SBM Mineral Processing has been in operation at the Weingarten site of Frischbeton Eberle GmbH since late summer last year. For the first time, this semi-mobile plant in an innovative modular design is combined with an equally modular SBM container hopper, which makes it possible to store 540 m³ of aggregates on an exceedingly small footprint.

Reliable regional partner

Frischbeton Eberle is a family-run business headquartered in the town of Mochenwangen north of Ravensburg in the German State of Baden-Württemberg. The company operates a total of four concrete plants and serves customers in the Upper Swabian region from Ulm to Lindau with an average total production output of 100,000 m³ per year. Managing director Daniel Eberle consistently relies on state-of-the-art equipment in concrete production and logistics: The central scheduling department in Mochenwangen receives all customer orders and allocates them to the individual plants according to delivery destinations and capacity utilization. The company’s own 30 truck mixers and dump trucks, most of which are designed as swap bodies or trailers, are linked to the head office via GPS and radio data transmission, which optimizes order processing and just-in-time raw material deliveries from the company’s own sand and gravel quarry in Illertissen or from other regional delivery sites.

Frischbeton Eberle also leaves nothing to chance when it comes to concrete quality: For example, the business relies on the Alpha concrete product management system supplied by admixture specialist BT3, which allows for the individual delivery batches to be perfectly aligned with transport routes and processing times by precisely recording all key production parameters, such as aggregate temperature and water content, and using admixtures tailored to specific needs. In addition to customer-specific and custom concretes, about 80 recipes are processed in the day-to-day business across all Eberle sites. For a good four years now, the range has also included recycled concretes. At the beginning of this year, the company also added low-carbon concretes to its product portfolio.

Investment in modern plants

The high quality standards and the constantly growing product range require efficiently run production facilities. For this purpose, Frischbeton Eberle commissioned a stationary SBM Towermix concrete mixing plant at its southernmost location in Meckenbeuren as early as at the beginning of 2021, while the Weingarten site followed suit last year. While the original plans foresaw that only the outdoor aggregate storage facility with an in-line metering system was to make way for a large container hopper, the decision was made during the project phase to also replace the almost 30-year-old mixing plant with a modern system.

At the end of 2022, Frischbeton Eberle chose SBM Mineral Processing and its recently launched Dynamix unit. Thanks to its modular design, the new equipment was very easy to adapt to the existing site. Its standards in terms of product variety, availability, and modern working conditions are fully comparable to stationary systems, yet with the added peace of mind of investing in a temporary installation.

In the new setup, aggregates are stored in the 19 m high container hopper with automatic feed to the seven chambers from the immediately adjacent 20 m³ feed hopper designed for cost-efficient just-in-time delivery on semitrailers. After being discharged onto the weighing belt, aggregate batches are conveyed to the Dynamix bucket elevator in a dust-proof enclosure. From the five cement silos (85 m³/105 t each, one double chamber) and the admixture storage located in the solid building also accommodating the control room and staff facilities, the remaining constituents are transferred to the spacious weighing platform above the mixer level that includes the BHS DKXS 2.50 twin-shaft mixer with a capacity of 2.50 m³ of hardened concrete per batch. Reliable year-round operation is ensured by an aggregate heating system with temperature control and the good insulation of the Dynamix mixing plant delivered in an attractive winter version.

Sound cooperation in the design and construction phase

A single operator uses the Simma Electronic system installed at all Eberle sites to control the video-monitored production process. This control unit also provides the link to the central scheduling system. “In addition to the top-class technical components such as the BHS mixer, which impressed us in terms of quality and speed already after commissioning of the Towermix, our specific needs were integrated into the equipment in a flexible manner, which ultimately tipped the scales in favor of SBM Mineral Processing,” says managing director Daniel Eberle. “The equipment manufacturer also consistently adapted its modular technology to our site conditions, for example by positioning the feed hopper and bucket elevator beside the container hopper, which, in contrast to other solutions, provides significantly greater space for internal traffic,” adds Daniel Eberle, summing up the sound cooperation during the design and construction phase that took about eight months.