All over the world grain is counted as one of our most valuable staple foodstuffs, write Hans-Dietrich Greth and Michael Heimisch. In the light of a growing world population and climate change, safeguarding this raw material is one of the challenges of our times. In addition to the monitoring of cultivation itself, handling after the harvest is also a critical factor in relation to quality
assurance and the reduction of raw material losses. To meet the growth in demand for modern and efficient logistics systems, Bu¨hler and Schmidt-Seeger will in future be working together, having now jointly created Bu¨hler’s new global Grain Logistics Business Unit. Whether it be grain or malt, canola or vegetables, Buhler and Schmidt-Seeger, with their many years of experience throughout the world, offer high-end solutions for every aspect of professional grain management. The service-proven technologies of both companies complement each other perfectly and therefore cover all the processes involved: conveying, cleaning, grading, drying, dedusting, storage, loading and unloading.
Countless tonnes of agricultural commodities are transshipped every day around the world — and the requirements to be met by the grain collection facilities and cargo handling terminals involved are growing. The overriding priority here is to use the latest technology to prepare every last grain of cereal for storage and processing as gently and economically as possible. These processes require considerable specialist knowledge of the systems and products. Grain Logistics offers all the process stages from a single source, meaning the complete package, namely the planning, development, construction and maintenance of anything from individual components to complete systems — anywhere in the world. Working closely together with the customer, Grain Logistics develops, plans and constructs customer-specific plants from standardized components.With regular servicing and genuine spare parts from Grain Logistics’ customer service, the plants can offer decades of reliable service.
One of the latest projects, for which Schmidt-Seeger was contracted as the general contractor with responsibility for planning, delivery and installation management (supervision), is the new cargo handling terminal for North Star Shipping at the port of Constanta on the Black Sea. The plant is primarily a place of transshipment and an intermediate storage facility for grain, such as wheat and barley, which has already been cleaned. The grain is collected throughout Romania at grain collection facilities along the Danube route and then loaded onto deep-sea vessels (Panamax ships) from river craft, trains and trucks at the port of Constanta for transportation to the Far East, the Mediterranean region and Northern Europe. A total of 240,000 tonnes can be stored in the 32 round steel silos at the cargo handling terminal.
Incoming deliveries can be brought by truck, rail and river craft. Schmidt-Seeger supplied four receiving facilities for trucks with a capacity of 400tph (tonnes per hour), and one of them is also suitable for receiving from trains. In addition to the truck and rail receiving facilities there are also two ship receiving areas, each of which has a capacity of 400tph. One specification that Schmidt- Seeger had to meet was that at least two receiving areas had to be capable of being run at the same time, with every silo partition being filled from all receiving areas. To meet the requirements of European explosion protection standards, the plans included gutter dedusting devices for every receiving area. And in the ship receiving areas, too, a filter plant was planned in order to ensure optimum dust control and therefore a high standard of safety.
After the product has been weighed in-flow by receiving scales, it is transferred by belt conveyors to the round silos for storage. Optimum storage conditions are guaranteed by full and empty sensors, a temperature control and ventilation system and special screws for residue-free emptying.
For better hygiene and improved quality, all the elevators have residue-free conveying systems. In this special design ‘made by Schmidt-Seeger’, the construction was modified to minimize gaps and eliminate all dead angles and spaces. The result is 99.9% residue-free conveying of the product. This has the major benefit that no residue is left in the conveyor, which in turn means a higher standard of hygiene. As for the trough chain conveyors, the customer also had special requirements in relation to protection against wear. The entire conveying system had to be rugged and offer an extended service life even if used for large transport volumes. As a consequence, not only was the base of the trough chain conveyor lined with Rino Hyde plastic but the bottom part of the trough as well. Other requirements to be met by the conveying system included ensuring that the technical preconditions for preventing the ignition of a hazardous, explosive atmosphere were achieved and constructive measures for restricting the impact of an explosion to an acceptable level taken.
Dust is removed from the complete system by four filter plants, three of which have a capacity of 215m3/min, the other 520m3/min. In addition, the plans included spot filters on all the elevators for direct dedusting. The aspiration system meets the requirements of the latest statutory regulations such as the Atex directive and the German ‘TA-Luft’ directive on clean air.
There are three different options for loading the products. Normally the product is conveyed by a belt conveyors at a rate of 800tph per row of silos via discharge trucks to two cross- conveyors and on to the shiploaders. Loading onto the Panamax ships is carried out with two shiploaders, each of which has a capacity of 800tph. The maximum possible shiploading capacity
of 1,600tph is based on heavy-grain cereal. An alternative option is to load onto the shiploaders directly from the receiving areas without any intermediate storage. The third option is to transship the grain from water to land.Train or truck loaders with capacities of 400tph are provided for this.
Challenges faced during construction included the need to complete installation work in the confined port of Constanta and the restrictions presented by daily operations at the port. In addition, the plans had to account for an earthquake zone of 0.16g and a snow load of 2.56 KN.
Construction started in September 2009 and the first phase of construction on the project was completed and put into operation in September 2010. It is envisaged that the second phase of construction will be completely finished in June 2011. The customer is already very satisfied:“Right at the outset in the initial phase of the project we were really impressed with Schmidt-Seeger’s engineering know-how. As the implementation of the project has progressed, we have been convinced by the quality of the products and services,” says Mr.Teodor Bolocan, certified engineer and project manager of Minmetal S.A., Romania.
ABOUT SCHMIDT-SEEGER
Schmidt-Seeger, which is part of the Bu¨hler group, ranks among the world’s foremost suppliers of professional technologies for the management of bulk products. Customers include predominantly the cereals and seeds industry, breweries and malt plants.
ABOUT BU¨HLER
Bu¨hler is one of the world’s major suppliers of process engineering solutions, in particular for production technologies for foodstuffs and industrial materials. Bu¨hler has operations in more than 140 countries and employs around 7,500 persons worldwide. Turnover in FY 2009 was CHF 1.7 billion.
Flexibility that pays — mobile grain loading
Extreme weather events worldwide with droughts in Russia, Ukraine and other parts of Europe and adverse weather in the United States, Canada and Australia has slashed output and put a lot of pressure on global grain markets. In the USA the situation is also very fluid, the price of corn, used to make livestock feed and ethanol, has soared 95% in the past year, wheat has surged 84% and soybeans are up 57%. In London, at the time of writing March futures are set at over £200 per tonne, representing a more than doubling over the last three years.
With production pressures and ever-increasing demand from emerging markets, particularly in the Far East, it is clear the price trend will be ever upwards, especially when the demand from bio-fuels are factored in.
Around the world virtually every crop has supply problems and grain inventories in particular are at their lowest level for many years. The market is volatile not only in terms of trading prices but also in terms of logistical demands with new exporters coming on stream in developing countries where established port infrastructure may not exists. Under such conditions the flexibility of mobile loading equipment is extremely attractive. It does not require a dedicated berth or any fixed handling devices and may load direct from truck to ship without double handling or risk of contamination.
British company B&W Mechanical Handling Ltd. of Ely pioneered the development of the mobile shiploader concept in the beginning of the 1980s. Since then the company has delivered approximately 100 shiploaders of different types and sizes all around the world. In the grain trade, machines are generally supplied to either the port operator, shipper or trader wishing to take advantage of present market conditions and where a fixed permanent grain elevator and export facility cannot be justified.
A recent example is to be seen at the new Port of Great Yarmouth on the eastern seaboard of the UK. The cereals
export facility is operated by Gleadell Agriculture Ltd., which has installed a new fully featured B&W mobile shiploader. This equipment will receive cereals from the local on-port storage facility or from farm stores located in the hinterland of the port all delivered by conventional road tipping trucks. When not required for ship loading the equipment may be motored off the berth, under its own power, and stored till required for the next shipment.
EFFECTIVE DUST CONTROLMinimizing the environment impact, particularly from dust pollution, was a fundamental part of the design brief from Gleadell. Great Yarmouth is a well-known touristic destination and a typical Victorian-style English seaside town with the beach close to the new port and as such any fugitive dust would be clearly a very sensitive issue.
The mobile shiploader included twin SamsonTM feeders which permit direct intake from tipping trucks. The material free fall from the truck to the feeder is very short so that dust generation is mitigated at source.
With the dust control measures provided wind-blown dust pollution from the truck discharge is practically eliminated. Full dust control measures are extended by provision of a full enclosure to the shiploader boom with a dust filter at the conveyor feed boot and at the discharge to the trimming chute.
Control of the material from the boom head to the hold floor is absolutely critical from the dust control perspective in any ship loading operation. In Great Yarmouth the Cascade-style dust controlled trimming chute was specified. Using a stack of inclined interlocking cones the material is constrained to flow in a zigzag path to restrict the flow velocity. Only a small dust filter is required at the transition from the boom to the chute to fully contain any dust.
SPECIFIED FOR PERFORMANCEThe performance of any truck-to-ship loading operation is effectively limited by the lost time in manoeuvring the trucks and moving the equipment to trim the vessel and the individual holds. Having twin SamsonTM feeders allows two trucks to discharge simultaneously therefore mitigating any lost time in positioning the vehicles. In this manner, the equipment is able to achieve a spot rate capacity of 1,000tph (tonnes per hour) handling wheat.
To maintain a high through-the-ship loading rate powered travel facilities with in-line and parallel movement are included to lessen the time required to reposition the equipment. In the Great Yarmouth arrangement, the complete equipment may be moved as a single piece with the on-board diesel generator. No shore power is required. To bring the equipment to the berth the in-line travel mode is generally employed, but to move the vessel along the berth the wheels may be realigned for travel parallel to the vessel.
Of course parallel travel is ideal with vessels with a single open hold and no deck gear to obstruct the machine sideways movement. However, with a geared vessel the equipment must be moved to and fro to pass by the ship’s cranes. This more typical design puts even more pressure on the shiploader powered travel system and the ability to change quickly from inline to parallel travel modes is critical. The B&W mobile shiploader is supplied with the latest version of the ‘New- Generation’ powered travel gear including automated wheel alignment for all modes of travel. With this system, each wheel set is mounted to a slewing ring with hydraulic jacking system and alignment actuator. This permits the wheel sets to be aligned for the desired travel direct using rotary positional transducers to signal the relative alignment and automate the change between travel modes. In addition the wheel unit alignment system provides for true Ackermann style steering in both travel modes controlled from the driver cabin on the shiploader chassis.
THE UNIQUE STERLING SERIES BY B&WBack in 2002 Gleadell Agricultural purchased the largest mobile shiploader ever built by B&W and, with a working weight of around 400 tonnes, probably the largest mobile shiploader ever. Located at the port of Immingham and designed to operate on a dedicated berth but with the flexibility to park the machine clear and free the berth for other cargoes.
Known as the Sterling Series by B&W, this is a very different design being based on the tower concept with vertical elevation and a radial outloading boom offering a high freeboard clearance within a compact footprint. To take full advantage of the deepwater berth at Immingham this machine was designed to load Panamax size ships with a freeboard of around 15 metres.
For loading such vessels, a high work rate is essential and for this purpose the Sterling Series machine was supplied with four integral SamsonTM feeders mounted in pairs to each side of the machine chassis. Using all four feeders, the appliance can load at a theoretical rate of 1,200tph continuously but the operators claim a peak rate of 2,000tph was achieved.
In order to maximize the overall loading rate, each pair of Samson
TM feeders is automatically speed-controlled to maximize the receiving rate of each unit regardless of the load level on either and allow indiscriminate truck tipping without fear of overloading. This system is totally transparent to the operators who simply discharge the trucks as they arrive. The through- the-ship loading rate is related to the conveying capacity of the handling equipment and to the manoeuvring capability of the machine related to both hold trimming and moving along the vessel between holds clear of the ship’s deck gear.
In the Sterling Series hold trimming is effected by using the rotating trimming distributor and also the radial outloading boom by travelling the boom diagonally across the hold from corner to corner in both directions. When the hold is trimmed out, the outloading boom may be moved parallel to the vessel and the complete equipment moved along the quay generally without the need to shunt back and forth, as is the case with a conventional design. As with the machine at Great Yarmouth, the Sterling Series
includes electronic Ackermann steering with precision rotary potentiometers to signal the wheel position. This system also allows steering without a physical linkage between the wheel steering units and at the same time maintaining an Ackermann- style steering geometry automatically. Each wheel-steering unit can support up to 120 tonnes’ live load on six tyres and a hydraulic jacking system is employed to stabilize the machine in operation and raise the chassis, allowing the wheels to be aligned off load.
SMALL AND EFFICIENT:THE LANCASTERFor very much smaller vessels, B&W is able to offer the Lancaster Series mobile conveyor for loading ships. Typically, this size of machine will handle ships to 5,000dwt depending upon the freeboard clearance over the quay level. Feeder conveyors can be used to transfer grains from tipping trucks to the Lancaster Series allowing maximum flexibility of alignment on a congested berth. For this type of feeder conveyor, the grains must be tipped through the small grain door and the feed rate manually regulated by opening and closing the grain door to avoid over feeding the conveyor.
These three projects by B&W represent grain export facilities ranging from small coasters through Handysize vessels up to Panamax ships covering the largest parcels of grain likely to be shipped. Loading the ship is clearly the last stage in the cereals export process from the farm gate. However, generally between farm and port there will be a storage facility, particularly with co-operative organizations. For this purpose, alongside the mobile shiploaders, B&W developed a mobile stacking solution for use in flat open stores, often converted warehouses: the B&W StormajorTM. It was the mainstay of the UK Intervention grain storage business from the early 1980s and remains today the industry standard solution for loading to open flat storage in the UK, Europe and even in the Middle East.
B&W has had its roots firmly planted in the grain handling business for the last 30 years, offering high-performance solutions to satisfy the ever-expanding needs of the agricultural
industry. This experience was never more relevant than today with an ever-expanding world population and rapidly expanding demand from the major developing countries for meat products.
ABOUT GLEADELL AGRICULTUREGleadell Agriculture Ltd is a major trader of grain in the UK and, in volatile and risk-laden markets, is a safe and trusted trading partner for farmers and consumers. The company was founded in 1880 and today is a leading exporter of all grains, oilseeds and pulses to markets in the EU and further afield and a significant supplier to UK millers, maltsters, feed compounders and other consumers of grain. It is also the largest trader of organic grain in the UK and a growing force in the sourcing and delivery of imported and home-produced fertilizer and seed.
Since 2001, Gleadell has been jointly owned by Toepfer International and InVivo, a leading provider of agricultural goods and services in the EU. Gleadell operates from six offices throughout England and offers a people-based, quality service to farmers and consumers. Gleadell is a financially sound and profitable company that is investing in, and focused on, the future.
ABOUT B&W MECHANICAL HANDLINGB&W enjoys the benefits of being fully integrated into the substantial and respected international Aumund Group with strategically placed offices in more than ten countries and representatives in over 40. The bulk handling specialists have over 500 installed SamsonTM feeder units around the globe with more than 40 of them installed underground handling a wide variety of materials including sugar, coal and petroleum coke, cement clinker, gypsum, iron ore and blast furnace slag to name but a few.
ABOUT THE AUMUND GROUPThe AUMUND Group is active on four continents. The conveying and storage specialist has special expertise at its disposal when dealing with bulk materials. With their high degree of individuality, its technically sophisticated and innovative products have contributed to the AUMUND Group today being a market leader in many areas of conveying and storage technology. The manufacturing companies AUMUND Fo¨rdertechnik GmbH, SCHADE Lagertechnik GmbH, B&W Mechanical Handling Ltd. as well as AUMUND Logistik GmbH are consolidated under the umbrella of the AUMUND Group. In conjunction with the headquarters of the manufacturing companies, the global conveying and storage technology business is spearheaded by a total of eight locations in Asia, Europe, North and South America.