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Fuller®
Bringing 100 years of experience to FLSmidth
When Fuller joined FLSmidth 1990, they brought with them key products, innovations and a vast experience.
When handling of pulverized coal caused explosions and threatened lives, engineer Alonzo G. Kinyon of the Fuller-Lehigh Company invented what later became one of the greatest contributions to cement manufacture. That was more than one hundred years ago. Over the years, the award-winning Fuller-Kinyon® Pump has profoundly changed the layouts of cement plants. Today, ongoing developments and improvements to pump performance, operating life and maintenance requirements ensure our customers maximum efficiency, flexibility and reliability in the conveying of pulverised material.
FLSmidth’s legacy of quality crushers began with the Fuller-Traylor Gyratory Crushers of the early 1900’s. Due to the marked change in the sizes of stone required for concrete work and road surfacing, demand increased for a crusher that would produce large quantities of stone, one inch and under, without an excess of dust. The first Gyratory Crushers were designed and built to meet the need for large capacity, great strength and easy adjustment to maintain the size of product. The Gyratory Crusher gave Fuller-Traylor a reputation throughout the worldwide mining industry as a provider of reliable, high quality equipment. After acquiring Fuller, FLSmidth has taken this original design and expanded on it to develop the Gyratory Crusher NT.
To help customers in the loading and unloading of materials, Fuller acquired the rights to the French Multi-Vane Rotary Compressor design in 1931. Compared to other compressors, this new Vane design had several distinct advantages, including compactness, negligible vibration and pulsation-free operation. Following World War II, Fuller became a manufacturer of its own Ful-Vane™ compressor. Today the Ful-Vane Air Compressor is still commonly found in pneumatic conveying applications, while the Ful-Vane Gas Compressor is widely used in both refrigeration and the oil and gas industries.
A brief history of Fuller
Fuller was officially founded in 1926, but its history dates back even further to a foundry business in Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania, USA. With 18 cement plants within a 75-mile radius, this industry heartland was an important centre of the American industrial revolution and the Fuller was instrumental in its development.
James W. Fuller III steered the company from foundry to full-service cement industry supplier, designing specialist products and processes for the cement and other industries, many of which are still sold today. In fact, the Fuller-Kinyon® pump and Ful-Vane™ compressor – two legacy Fuller products – have only grown in popularity since the company’s acquisition by FLSmidth.
With the acquisition of Traylor Engineering in 1959 came large-scale items such as kilns, mills, crushers, and other equipment suitable also for the mining industries. Fuller thereby achieved total plant capability, serving both the cement and mining industries.
Fuller became part of FLSmidth in 1990. But according to industry histories the two companies were aware of each other as far back as the 1890s. The story goes that one of the founders of F.L. Smidth & Co, Poul Larsen, visited Pennsylvania to see the newly developed rotary kiln that Fuller-Lehigh installed at Atlas Cement. Poul took the idea back to Europe, where it was clearly a hit – but it’s unlikely he would have foreseen that these two industry giants would one day combine their expertise and equipment portfolio to become the world’s leading solutions provider for the cement and mining industries.
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