Otimização da operação de britagem de peças de refugo no processo produtivo de uma empresa cerâmica

Abstract

Crushing is a unitary operation that aims at the fragmentation of a certain material, usually coming from mines, into smaller parts. This process is commonly used in the initial stages of production, but there are also ceramic industries that use the crusher as a means of transformation for the scrap of production to be used as a raw material. Therefore, this study aims to increase the efficiency of the crushing process of scrap parts in a ceramic industry. For this purpose, a brainstorming was done together with collaborators, and then data were created to size the operation (such as time to feed the crusher, time needed to crush a pallet with scrap parts, time needed to remove the scrap label, quantity of parts sent per day to the scrap, among others). With these data and parameters established, a study was made to know which factors were more harmful to the process, and it was discovered that the step of the removal of the indicative label of scrap was wasting a lot of time. Thus, the influence of the label material on the characteristics of the barbotine and part after sintering was studied. Rheological tests of barobotin and mechanical tests of compression, color, shrinkage and loss to the furnace of the sintered part were performed. It was verified that the label did not alter neither the properties of the casbutin nor the properties of the sintered part, being this step eliminated from the process and it was possible a 20% increase in the quantity of crushed pallets, besides a saving of almost 7 thousand reais per year.