1) The document summarizes a student's report on an industrial visit to the Lafarge Surma Cement plant in Bangladesh. 2) The plant uses a long belt conveyor to transport limestone from the quarry, and has facilities for grinding raw materials, heating the mixture to produce clinker, cooling and storing the clinker, and grinding it into cement. 3) The visit gave students insight into cement production processes and the responsibilities of operating a large industrial plant.

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A REPORT ON ONE DAY INDUSTRIAL VISIT TO THE
Lafarge Surma Cement Ltd | LafargeHolcim Bangladesh Ltd
The industrial visit is organized by:
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, Sylhet.

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Entrance of LafargeHolcim Surma Plant
Industry Profile:
Lafarge Surma Cement is located in Chhatak Sunamganj and the only fully integrated dry
process cement plant in Bangladesh. Lafarge Surma Cement Ltd. is a joint venture of
LafargeHolcim, a world leader in building materials and Cementos Molins, Spanish
multinational company with strong global presence in 90 countries. Lafarge Surma Cement
(LSC) is a group company of LafargeHolcim Group and Cementos Molins.
It has acquired 198 acres of land. The monthly production rate is about 1,17,590 metric tons of
clinker and 1,25,462.48 tons of cement. It has the longest troughed conveyor belt (17 km) in
the world. Safety is the top priority for the LH Group. In the event of health and safety concerns,
it strictly adheres to zero compromise. It has two unique products with different brand names,
one is Supercrete, a type of Portland limestone cement, and the other is Powercrete, a type of
Portland composite cement.

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Reporting at LafargeHolcim Surma Plant:
We arrived at the site around 10:00 am on September 22, 2022 with 25 people (22 3rd year
students and 3 teachers) at the site. And we were warmly welcomed by an engineer, Md.
Anamul Haque, Mechanical Maintenance, who was our instructor throughout the industry visit.
We had to present our vaccination record before entering the site of visit. After all health issues
had been dealt with, we were taken to the administration building by bus.
HR department briefing:
In the administration building, we were briefed on the background and capabilities of the
industry through a short presentation by HR Director Anamul Haque. In the briefing we
understand the industry insights and how an industry can work by aligning all sectors to it. The
HR Director also informed us about current and future projects in the industry. We were also
briefed on the instructions on health and safety protocols. By then we split into two groups and
the first group was taken to the lobby to wear safety gear. Then the first group was taken to the
main sights to visit with our instructor and one of our respected teachers.

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Visiting Sites
LBC (Long Belt Conveyor):
Inspecting The LBC
Conveys limestone to the plant which is an essential ingredient in cement production. 10 km
of the belt is in the Bangladesh region and 7 km is in the India region, totaling 17 km long. The
belt is of 800 ton/hr capacity. It has three drives of 630 KW each, 2 in Bangladesh and 1 in
India. Moves at a speed of 4 meters per second. It has a total of 15000 idler pulleys and only
40 belts on the factory premises. Then, we were taken to the storage shed.
LSS (Limestone Storage Shed):
A storage space for clay A storage space for Limestone
It is a storage space for limestone and clay. It has a bridge reclaimer and belt to transport the
raw materials of clay for the next operation.

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Hopper Building:
There different core clinker materials are mechanically separated. Then the mixture sent to the
VRM. Due to a maintenance issue, we were unable to visit the hopper building.
VRM (Vertical Roller Mill):
It is one of the most important machines. It grinds the proportionate raw material mixture to a
certain level of fineness. Here the clinker raw materials are crushed to its smallest chunks. A
hydraulic cylinder is used for this purpose, which presses the rollers onto the table and provides
the grinding pressure. Here accumulator is used to as a shock absorber.

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Preheater:
To turn the fine mixture of raw materials into clinker, the mixture was sent to the preheater
where it is heated up to 900°C. The preheater has number of tubes which helps to reach up the
required temperature. The preheater increases the efficiency of kiln. The conical parts are called
cyclone.
Kiln:
The kiln provides sufficient temperature and environment for necessary chemical reactions
required for clinker production. The kiln can reach temperatures of 1200°C and effectively heat

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the clinker. The clinker cooler is used under the kiln to cool the hot clinker with the help of
blown air. Then the cold clinker sent to the clinker silo.
Clinker Silo:
It is a storage space for clinker. It has an automatic system for storing clinker. The capacity of
the clinker silo is 1,00000 tons. Then the clinker sent to the cement mill.
Cement Mill:

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Grinds the mixture of clinker, gypsum, and limestone to produce the final product. Called ball
mill when ball is used for grinding mechanism. The cement mill has a capacity of 2 nos.  100
tons/hr each. Then the final sent to the cement silo.
Cement Silo:
It is a storage space for the produced cement. The cement silo has a capacity of 2nos.  11,000
tons each.
Packing Plant:
The packing plant has a capacity of 3nos. 100 tons/hr each (8 sprout Roto-packer). Due to a
maintenance issue, we were unable to visit the hopper building.
Loading:
The clinker loading system has a capacity of 400 tons/hour in open barge loading mode. And
the cement bag loading system has capacity of 2nos. 100tons/hr for both barge and truck
loader.
Other Factors:
The power required for the proper operation of the LafargeHolcim Surma Cement Plant is
produced and supplied by Wartsila. Wartsila produced 30 MW power. Also, some sort of power

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is generated from the Geocycle a sector of LafargeHolcim Surma Plant. There was a warehouse
to store different types of necessary components.
There was a mini fire station to prevent any kind of accidents. There is also enough safety
equipment to keep the workplace safe and healthy for employees.
Images:
Group Photograph with 25 people
(22 are the third-year students and 3 are our respected teachers)
Engineer, Md. Anamul Haque
briefs us on the industry visit

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Conclusion:
The entire visit to LafargeHolcim Surma Plant allows us to understand how raw materials are
produced so efficiently and how these raw materials can be used in cement production. We
have learned so many important things related to our academic studies. By visiting the industry,
we can understand how a multinational company can run its industry and deal with the other
consequences.
Being the only fully integrated dry process cement plant in Bangladesh, we could see how
much pressure and responsibility must be maintained to continue the production of both the
cement raw materials and the cements. The environment of that industry was so much friendly
and memorizing. We are very grateful to our distinguished teachers, our industry visit trainer
and the LafargeHolcim Surma Plant Authority.