Continental Cement partners with Dome Technology to build large-capacity cement storage

Continental Cement Co., a Summit Materials company, has another storage dome in the works, this time at its Davenport, Iowa, USA facility.

The DomeSilo is designed to store 125,000 short tons of cement powder; when completed, dome provider Dome Technology believes the structure will be among the largest-capacity cement storage facilities in the world, said sales manager Lane Roberts.

The dome size is a response to demand that’s been building for the past decade. CCC Davenport has been short on storage for many years, resulting in cement being loaded on barges and stored on the river. Over the past decade, CCC has stored significant amounts of cement each year, resulting in substantial demurrage costs. With demand for cement and barge demurrage costs increasing each year, Summit Materials and Continental Cement were confident that now was the time to invest in larger, more permanent storage.

“CCC will reduce its demurrage costs for cement storage on the river and eliminate the need to curtail production or shut down the plant. This helps to ensure we have sufficient cement to ship coming out of the winter months into the busy spring and summer seasons,” Continental Cement Co. plant manager Shawn Mages said.

The DomeSilo is 165 feet in diameter and 171.5 feel tall. Reclaim will be achieved with an FLS Ful-Floor pneumatic reclaim system, and the dome’s floor will be faceted with slopes in four directions. This model is up and coming, and Dome Technology is working on multiple DomeSilo Drive-Thru designs that will feature the same.

In Davenport, product will flow to a center discharge with a single tunnel that is 14 feet wide and 12 feet tall. Reclaim speed will top out at 350 stph.

Dome Technology’s scope of work also includes construction of a mechanical/electrical building and overseeing site preparation and earth work. The team demolished three bays of an existing building to clear way for the dome and the new mechanical/electrical building.

Editor’s note: This is an excerpt from an International Cement Review article published in the December 2022 issue. Access the full issue here