KTI - Concrete cooling and heating

Concrete cooling and heating for Argentine hydropower project enables year-round mass concrete production

In Patagonia, Argentina, great potential has been identified for hydroelectric power generation as a renewable source of electricity. A major challenge to build the necessary dam structure with high quality mass concrete is the warm summers and cold winters. Therefore, we have provided our customer with a year-round concrete production solution that guarantees a fresh concrete temperature of 10 °C / 50 °F to meet the required quality standards.

SAUTER HWS1000 hot water plant and KTI PLIP120 slab ice plant on MIS23 ice storage and CCWT58 water tank in front of the mixing plant for mass concrete production

KTI - Concrete cooling and heating

Massive components and extreme temperatures

After we delivered our solutions for the production of mass concrete in winter to our customer in Patagonia in the extreme south of Argentina at the beginning of 2020, the delivery of a solution for concrete cooling followed towards the end of the year. The construction of a hydropower plant there requires the highest demands on the temperature of the mass concrete, as extreme ambient temperatures prevail and the durability of the concrete must be ensured. Not for the first time, we were able to convince the customer with our competence and the wide product range of concrete heating and cooling equipment. From a single source, we supplied and commissioned our equipment for year-round concrete production. In order to avoid thermal stress, cracking and unwanted shrinkage, a rule of thumb states that the fresh concrete temperature to be achieved should be equal to the annual average ambient temperature. In this project, the fresh concrete temperature was defined as 10 °C / 50 °F, while the ambient temperature reached 30 °C / 86 °F in summer and was below 10 °C / 50 °F in winter. The total daily production capacity was set at 3,000 m³ of concrete per day.

KTI - Concrete cooling and heating

The details at a glance

10 °C

fresh concrete temperature

3000 m³

Concrete per day

30 °C

At least in summer

5 °C

Maximum in winter

KTI - Concrete cooling and heating

Technical data + installation details

To ensure the required concrete temperature, we supplied a complete solution for concrete tempering consisting of the following components and providing a heating capacity of approx. 4000 kW and a cooling capacity of approx. 1300 kW.

Concrete heating

• 1x HWS1000 type hot water system
• 3x clean air silo heater type OLH1000
• Air nozzles for the silos
• Insulated air ducts with automatic damper control

Concrete cooling

• 1x plate ice machine type PLIP120, with integrated ice water cooler
• 1x MIS23 type automatic ice storage system
• 1x silo cooling with cold air type CCAP800
• 1x air purifier / airwasher
• 1x CCWT58 type insulated cold water tank

KTI - Concrete cooling and heating

More information about concrete cooling and concrete heating

Learn why temperature-controlled production of concrete is so important and how our concrete cooling and heating solutions can help you - in concrete quality, production costs and durability.

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KTI - Concrete cooling and heating

365 days of temperature-controlled concrete production with KTI's CombiMaster CM50 in Austria

We equipped the concrete batching plant of an Austrian ready-mix concrete company with our CombiMaster to produce high-quality concrete all year round. The limited space at our customer's site was no problem for our very compact design, as the CombiMaster brings a complete cooling and heating system in just one 40-foot container. In addition, we supplied the customer with specially designed air nozzles that were installed in the existing silos.

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KTI - Concrete cooling and heating

Compact installation makes it possible

In 2021, we successfully installed another CombiMaster CM 50 at a customer in Austria. The requirement was to achieve a fresh concrete temperature from the mixer of 27-21 ° C / 81-70 ° F at an ambient temperature of 30-35 ° C / 86-95 ° F in summer. While in winter 15 ° C / 59 ° F concrete at -10 ° C / 14 ° F ambient temperature is the target. Both temperature requirements are to be achieved with a production capacity of 300-600 m³ / 390-785 yd³ of concrete per day. Specially designed and manufactured air nozzles were supplied by us to the customer and installed in the silo chambers to ensure perfect distribution of hot or cold air through the aggregates and sand. Furthermore, our service technicians installed the air ducts and water pipes. The commissioning of the plant was done in two steps. First for the cooling side before the summer season. Secondly, the heating system was commissioned to make the plant ready for winter concrete production.

KTI - Concrete cooling and heating

More information about concrete cooling and concrete heating

Learn why temperature-controlled production of concrete is so important and how our concrete cooling and heating solutions can help you - in concrete quality, production costs and durability.

To the industry page