Portable Sand Plants

Portable Sand Plants can be as simple as a Sizing Screen mounted over a Fine Material Screw Washers to wash out the 75µm (200 mesh) or a plant to produce frac sand sizes separating accurately at 40 mesh, 70 mesh or 140 mesh.

Applications

How Portable Sand Plants Work

Whether these plants are called portable, transportable, relocatable, wheel-mounted, skid-based, mobile, modular, etc., they share common features — they go on a truck and down the road with a minimum of disassembly/reassembly for rapid (re)deployment. Often this need is for a start-up company, permitting reasons, tracking a highway project across multiple deposits and limited term demand projects, such as dams or airport construction.

From a process perspective, Skid-Based and Portable Sand Plants do not work any differently than their customized cousins, they are just limited by size for transport; thus, their throughput capacity tends to be limited. While portability naturally limits capacity, it does not necessarily limit the process. These plants typically do not come complete with ancillary material handling, as most companies have available from their inventory or our dealers, but this can be included if needed.

Skid-based plants can have a variety of applications and configurations. The range of process options includes the following: scalping, liberating, sizing, pumping, washing, classifying, deligniting/organics removal, dewatering, effluent management and waste solid management.

McLanahan also has partner companies to provide other equipment such as jigs for separation of coarse organics or deleterious shales, etc. and bucket wheels for dewatering dredge type feed.

Many different types of equipment and systems can be configured on a skid base, including feed preparation equipment, such as Aggregate Conditioners, Attrition Cells and Coarse Material Screw Washers; Primary Sand Washing; Specialty Sand Production; Construction and Demolition; point-of-use applications such as processing sand filter materials; and effluent treatment with Thickeners and Filter Presses.

Why McLanahan Portable Sand Plants

McLanahan’s customized solutions are designed to respond to customer needs. Frequently, these needs are bespoke fixed plants with specialized processing such as in major frac sand plants, but other times these plants are required to be more transportable in their configuration.  

Having personnel with more than 40 years of experience and combined hundreds of years of expertise means that there are few applications McLanahan has not encountered. McLanahan can design a plant for most applications, including construction aggregates, construction and demolition recycling, and specialty sand. We are also experienced at supplying equipment to the environmental industry for contaminated soils washing and point-of-use specialty applications such as washing bunker sand or filter sand.

Frequently Asked Questions About Portable Sand Plants

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There are a couple of reasons. First, there are limitations on the transportation of full skid plants, whereas skid-based plants typically have smaller installed equipment. The other reason is that it would be a waste of steel to supply even the smaller plants with skid bases if not necessary.

Skid-based Portable Sand Plants are more expensive due to their heavier sections being required to be more robust for regular movement. They are also more fully assembled in ready-made sections, requiring more labor to manufacture.

Portable Sand Plants are typically skid-based with a structural open-frame construction and feature McLanahan’s in-house equipment.

Features & Benefits
  • More rapid (re)deployment and faster assembly than fixed plants
  • Most plants feature 100% McLanahan in-house equipment. Other equipment, such as jigs and bucket wheels, is incorporated from partner suppliers
  • The process and performance with Portable Sand Plants is the same as in free-standing plants (on legs attached directly to concrete bases); it is just they typically feature smaller equipment