Machine-made sand, also known as artificial sand or manufactured sand, has become increasingly popular in the aggregate market in recent years. This is due to several factors, including the depletion of natural sand resources, environmental concerns, and the quality and consistency of machine-made sand.
The aggregate market continues to be hot
The construction of roads, railways, and waterways drives new demand for sand and gravel. It has a very obvious driving effect on upstream and downstream industries, and will greatly stimulate the development of steel, cement, and sand and gravel aggregates.

Generally, the ratio of cement to sand and gravel aggregate is about 1:6, and the cement consumption is more than 6 million tons. At the same time, nearly 40 million tons of sand and gravel aggregate will be used, which is a great benefit to the sand and gravel aggregate industry.
Granite, basalt, river pebbles, glass sand, andesite, rhyolite, diabase, diorite, sandstone, limestone, calcite and other rocks can be used as raw materials for sand making.
How to produce machine-made sand?
At present, with the deepening of environmental protection, high-quality development has become a consensus among people. In engineering construction, more and more machine-made sandstones have replaced the use of natural sandstones. So how to produce machine-made sandstone?
Taking a basalt aggregate production line as an example, the production process of basalt machine-made sand typically involves the following steps:

1. Basalt crushing: Basalt is first crushed into smaller pieces using a jaw crusher, cone crusher, or impact crusher.
2. Basalt screening: The crushed basalt is screened to remove any oversized material and ensure that the final product has a consistent size and shape.
3. Basalt sand-making: The screened basalt is then processed in a sand-making machine to produce high-quality machine-made sand.
4. Basalt sand washing: The machine-made sand is then washed to remove any impurities or debris and to improve its quality. This step can be done using a sand washing machine.
5. Basalt drying: The washed sand is then dried to remove any excess moisture and prepare it for packaging or transportation.
Overall, the production process of basalt machine-made sand is designed to ensure that the final product is of high quality and has consistent size, shape, and cleanliness. The process typically involves several steps, each of which is essential for producing high-quality machine-made sand from basalt.
Machine-made sand production equipment
To design a sand and gravel aggregate production line, what equipment needs to be configured to process materials?

Jaw Crusher
Jaw crushers are suitable for processing sand and gravel aggregate raw materials, and are often used in the coarse crushing stage. It has the advantages of a simple structure, high reliability of continuous operation, low price, etc., and the discharge port can be adjusted.
Cone crusher
Cone crushers are widely used in the secondary crushing stage in sand and gravel aggregate projects. It has a large crushing force and a large processing capacity. It has good adaptability to most materials and materials with high hardness.
VSI sand making machine
The sand-making machine has the advantages of small size, high crushing efficiency, large output, and low maintenance. The various cavity types of the equipment are suitable for fine and ultra-fine crushing of most materials, taking into account the dual functions of shaping and sand making.
Sand washing machine
The sand-washing machine is a kind of water-washing equipment used in conjunction with the sand-making machine. It can wash away traces of stone powder and impurities from the mixed sand produced by the sand-making machine, thereby improving the quality of the sand.
Rotary drum dryer
Rotary drum dryer belongs to drying equipment, which is widely used in cement, mining, chemical industry, building materials production, and other industries. It can accelerate the drying speed of materials, to achieve higher production capacity and improve production efficiency.
Overall, the configuration of equipment needed to process machine-made sand depends on the specific requirements of the project, such as the type of raw materials, the desired size and shape of the final product, and the production capacity.