The Buhler business unit Grain Logistics is a major supplier of continuous ship unloaders and shiploaders for the bulk market. The company supplies both mechanical and pneumatic unloaders. The Grain Logistics unit is also a major supplier of storage solutions (silo and flat storage) as well as cleaning, dedusting and conveying components for grain related industries.
Buhler ship unloaders are used around the world for almost any agri-bulk application, from grain to soya, rice to maize. They are also used to handle mealy products, oilseed, pellets and derivatives.
Buhler has a wide range of clients, which can basically be grouped into terminals with pure logistics functions, grain traders with storage capabilities but also the processing industry that unloads commodities at their manufacturing sites.
The Portanova pneumatic ship unloader is a very popular choice in the Buhler product line.
The Buhler Portanova is a pneumatic ship unloader designed for efficient unloading of grain and oilseeds.
he unloading throughputs vary from 250tph (tonnes per hour) to 345tph on the basis of grain, depending on the specific ship size. The Portanova is distinguished by its high degree of mobility and availability as well as by its outstanding cost-to- benefit ratio.
The Portanova offers operators a wide variety of possible applications as an autonomous travelling or stationary ship unloader with its own energy supply as well as electrical power supply. The material unloaded is transferred to fixed conveying systems or directly into rail or road vehicles.
Portanova features
* low operating and maintenance costs: t possibility of lowering the boom to the ground for easy maintenance of the conveying pipes;
- vertically and horizontally telescopic conveying pipes of stainless steel;
- filter with top-removal system: fast detection of damaged bags, easy replacement of filter bags;
- direct drive of the rotary blower reduces energy consumption;
- stairs leading up to the machine room, walk-on boom; and t erection rail for fast and easy maintenance of the split
special airlock. y high availability and reliability:
- rotary blower with almost constant volumetric flow rate and conveying air velocity ensures uniform material throughput;
- double-jacket suction nozzle, vertically movable and with adjustable air slots, allows high throughputs with various materials; and t programmable logic control system with visualization of
operating and fault messages. y low wear:
- conveying pipes with thick walls and pipe elbows with basalt lining;
- filter inlet without pipe elbow, with impact pot in the bottom filter section; and
- split special airlock with enclosed rotor and wear plates. y high mobility
- can travel on rails or on rubber tyres; and t travels easily and quickly around obstacles thanks to
selectable steering programme.
RETROFIT VERSUS NEW EQUIPMENTOne key question for operators of ship unloaders is the lifetime of the equipment. Many of Buhler’s machines have been in operation for way over 20 years. Operators have the challenge of keeping a reasonable stock of spares and running scheduled maintenance to keep equipment operational and to ensure that machine availability is as good as possible. Wear of parts also reduces equipment performance, only perfect maintained equipment can ensure constant unloading performance.
Buhler’s customers often approach with the question of whether a retrofit is still possible, and if it is also economical. The answer, of course, very much depends on the condition of the installation. One key decision factor is the condition of the suction pipe. Technology has made clear advances in pneumatic conveying. Therefore, a state-of-the-art suction pipe is a key driver of equipment performance and operating cost. In contrast, even after 20 years, the steel structure of the unloaders often remains in good condition.
This has led to the idea of a standardized retrofit package for pneumatic unloaders, keeping the steel structure and quay interface, and replacing the suction pipe. One example has just been completed at a customer’s site. After 30 years of operation, the steel structure with the unloader drive is still in a sound condition, and Buhler has replaced only the pneumatic conveying installation. The result is a pneumatic ship unloader which still has its base elements from the original 1978 installation with a new, modern and state-of-the-art Portanova suction line. The 1978 original had an unloading capacity of 2x120tph; the new Portanova-based installation is now running with one suction line at just under 300tph.
The retrofit solution chosen for the ship unloader pays off for the customer in a number of respects. Overall, it is a cost-efficient, sustainable, and also an environmentally friendly solution in comparison with a new system as it allows all intact system components to be reused. Moreover, the retrofit solution proposed and then implemented by Buhler reduced the system downtime to a minimum. The customer now boasts a pneumatic unloader based on cutting-edge pneumatic conveying technology. It proved possible to boost the efficiency of an existing system at very reasonable investment.
SUCCESSFUL ANNIVERSARY YEAR 2010The Buhler Technology Group can look back on an encouraging business year in 2010. For the first time in the group’s 150-year history, order intake exceeded two billion Swiss francs. Also sales and operating result (EBIT) continued to grow.
The anniversary year will be known as one of the best in Buhler’s history. With CHF 2,160 million — or 21% more than a year ago — the order intake passed the mark of two billion Swiss francs, although the first quarter was still characterized by the turmoil in the global economy. All three divisions contributed to the growth. The greatest leap of 48% was achieved by Advanced Materials, followed by Food Processing (+27%) and Grain Processing (+15%). This pronounced increase in order intake was especially due to the emerging markets in Asia (+39%), North and South America (+19%), and the Middle
East (+96%). Thus, business is now spread evenly across the four main regions — Europe, Middle East/Africa, Asia, and North and South America.
A perceptible improvement was also achieved in sales growing 11% to CHF 1,907 million (+13% on a currency adjusted basis). The EBIT exceeded sales growth.
Buhler is a global supplier in the field of process engineering, in particular for production technologies and services for making foods and advanced materials. Buhler operates in over 140 countries and has a total payroll of about 7,800 employees worldwide.
Golfetto Sangati’s pneumatic unloaders suitable for vessels up to 60,000dwtGolfetto Sangati S.p.a. pneumatic unloaders cover an output range from 150tph (tonnes per hour) to 600tph. They are designed to unload vessels of various sizes, typically up to 66,000dwt.
Commodities handled are generally free-flowing products, but non free- flowing ones can also be handled when the appropriate equipment is fitted to break up the product (built in or external).
This article covers the average unloading capacity of a typical TRANSLIFT pneumatic ship
unloader (in this example, as 250tph model has been chosen), to unload the commodities listed below from a 45,000dwt ship.
From direct experience, Golfetto Sangati has noticed that unloading parameters vary according to the characteristics of each commodity — specific weight, moisture content, flowing characteristics, hygroscopicity, loose or compact form. Data reported has to be read accordingly.
The following average unloading capacities are being given based on sound and commercial commodities, without foreign matters and with standard specific weight and moisture content.
The above parameters are based on the assumption that non- free-flowing commodities are fed regularly and continuously to the pick-up nozzle of the unloader and that the unloader works without any interruption caused by downstream equipment (quay conveyors) or lack of trucks at the loading bays. Golfetto Sangati’s well-known pneumatic equipment has been developed and installed successfully in a range of plants worldwide, as detailed below.
Sales remain buoyant for VIGAN pneumatic equipment
Equipment giant VIGAN manufactures bulk materials handling systems mainly: y mobile pneumatic conveyor or vacuvators; y pneumatic continuous barge unloaders and mechanical barge loaders;
* mechanical and pneumatic continuous ship unloaders for vessels up to post-Panamax; and
* mechanical loaders for any size of ships.
The company’s expertise in pneumatic equipment is well- known, and it is able to provide the whole range of services, from project conception and feasibility studies to turnkey delivery of complete installations.
In 2010,VIGAN enjoyed fairly good sales, with equipment sold to Egypt, Greece, France,Vietnam, Pakistan, Ukraine, Nigeria, South Africa, Myanmar, Syria and Colombia. This year, the company has already received a range of orders in the last few months for customers in countries such as Bangladesh, South
Korea, the UK,Taiwan and Egypt. There have also been a few mobile machines sold to Indonesia, France, Iran and Former Soviet Union countries.
In 2010, the VIGAN workshop area was increased by another 800m2 square metres which has effectively doubled VIGAN’s main factory hall area.
VIGAN manufactures ship unloaders and loaders, both pneumatic and mechanical, with conveying capacities from a few hundred metric tonnes per hour up to 1,500tph, and for any vessel size.
VIGAN is not only a solutions provider for bulk handing with its equipment, but is also an engineering company with successful references for managing complete projects mainly in the port sector.
Among recent contracts for pneumatic equipment is a 600tph (metric tonnes per hour) pneumatic unloader, which was delivered to the Santa Marta port in Colombia.