Where is crushed stone mined? Extraction and production

Crushed stone is one of the most demanded construction materials. Its popularity is due to its use in different areas of human life. It is used for foundations, road construction, drainage systems on plots and even landscape design.

This article will be useful for those who want to understand where crushed stone comes from and what stages the material passes before delivery to a site.

Crushed Stone Extraction

So, where is crushed stone mined, how does it get to construction sites and how is it produced? The first thing to note is that crushed stone is mined in quarries. There are large granite reserves, so there are many quarries and crushed stone remains an accessible material. It is purchased both in large batches for industrial purposes and in small volumes for private projects.

Let us move directly to the process of crushed stone extraction. The first stage is blasting. With its help, stone is separated from the rock mass. It is very important to correctly carry out preparatory work before the blast. Such work includes drilling and placing explosives. During blasting, all activity in the quarry is suspended; all personnel must be outside the blasting area and must follow safety rules.

It is very important to understand that all quarry work, including blasting, is performed only by highly qualified specialists.

The next stage is breaking boulders with a hydraulic hammer for subsequent loading of the entire mass into dump trucks. Only after that is the stone delivered to the production line.

Crushed Stone Production

Next, the process moves to the receiving hopper where the delivered stone is unloaded. After that, it is crushed in special crushers. This is where crushed stone of different fractions is formed. A fraction is the grain size of crushed stone. There are main and associated fractions. One of the most demanded fractions is 5-20 mm. It is used in road and building construction because it works well in concrete and road mixtures.

Crushers also come in different types: jaw, cone, impact, hammer and roll crushers. These types differ by operating principle.

To obtain the finished product, one more stage is required: sorting. It is carried out by screens. A screen is a sieve, one or several, that allows stones to be distributed by fractions, or sizes. This equipment got its name because of the specific sound during operation.

Sorting is also carried out in several stages. First, large stones are separated from small ones. Stones that do not pass this stage are crushed again. Then screenings are separated from crushed stone. Screenings are grains with a diameter of 0.1-5 mm; they are so small that they resemble sand. Their price is much lower than crushed stone. Despite this, screenings have a wide range of applications. They are used for producing paving slabs, ceramics, in road construction and as anti-icing material.

Depending on product characteristics, its field of application is determined. Such characteristics include radioactivity, flakiness, strength, frost resistance, water absorption and impurity content. They are determined by laboratory methods specified in standards. Depending on the results, crushed stone is divided into classes. First-class crushed stone is used for residential construction, second-class for non-residential buildings and roads. Third-class material is used for road construction outside settlements.