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A rock crusher is
a machine designed to take large rocks as and reduce them to
smaller rocks, gravel, or rock dust. Rock crushers produce
aggregates and ready-to-process mining ores, as well as rock
fill material for landscaping and erosion control.
Crushing is the
first step in converting shot rock into usable products, by
taking large rocks and reducing them to smaller pieces. Crushing
is sometimes continued until only fines remain. At some
operations, all the crushing is accomplished in one step, by a
primary crusher. At other operations, crushing is done in two or
three steps, with a primary crusher that is followed by a
secondary crusher, and sometimes a tertiary crusher or even a
quaternary crusher.
Raw material, of various sizes, is brought to the primary
crusher by rear-dump haul units, or carried by a wheel front-end
loader. Primary crushing reduces this run-of-mine rock to a more
manageable size.
A cone crusher
is similar in operation to a gyratory crusher, with less
steepness in the crushing chamber and more of a parallel zone
between crushing zones. A cone crusher breaks rock by squeezing
the rock between an eccentrically gyrating spindle, which is
covered by a wear resistant mantle, and the enclosing concave
hopper, covered by a manganese concave or a bowl liner. As rock
enters the top of the cone crusher, it becomes wedged and
squeezed between the mantle and the bowl liner or concave. Large
pieces of ore are broken once, and then fall to a lower position
(because they are now smaller) where they are broken again. This
process continues until the pieces are small enough to fall
through the narrow opening at the bottom of the crusher.
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