22 Powder and Bulk Engineering, March 1987

Case history

Flour goes from storage to truck in three minutes

By using fluidized bin bottoms in its new loadout, King Milling has dramatically increased loadout speed.

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A truck pulls into position to receive a load of flour. Flour is loaded directly into trucks from four 200,000-pound capacity storage bins, located in the loadout facility.

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n 1983, King Milling Company, a flour mill located in Lowell, Mich., realized I it had to increase production space or

forget about increasing production capac- ity. Demand for the soft, white wheat flour it produces had outstripped the company’s ability to mill it in the facility it had occu- pied since it opened at the turn of the cen- tury.

In addition to solving its space problem, the company saw the remodeling project as a chance for it to build a bulk-storage, high-speed loadout system and install an inventory control system as well.

Speed has been King’s primary gain in building the loadout. Mike Doyle, senior vice president of King Milling, estimated that the new facility, equipped with storage bins employing Kice Industries’ fluidized bin bottoms, has reduced the time it takes to load a truck from 1 Y2 hours to 3 to 5 minutes.

The increase in loadout speed has resulted in a reduction in the manpower needed to

load trucks and in faster truck turnaround, which has eliminated the need to buy and operate additional trucks. In addition, the inventory control system provides com- plete information on storage inventory lev- els at the push of a button.

Designing the loadout

King had used Kice equipment since 1959, and Doyle contacted Kice h r help in designing the loadout. A local structural engineer was called in to handle the re- modeling portion of the project.

The first step was putting the company’s product inventory on load cells, including the product contained in the fbur 200,00@ pound capacity storage bins that are built into the loadout facility. The bins are sup ported by steel columns; load cells mounted on the columns give the we& of the flour in the bins and are used to control the amount of flour metered out. This en- ables the flour to be loaded directly into King’s bulk-flour trailers.

The time it takes a driver to load 50,000 pounds of flour has been reduced from I fi hours to 3 to 5 minutes.

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Valving directs fluidizing air to the proper storage bin. Fluidizing the flour makes it possible to move it and to load it into trucks without developing buildup or distribution problems.

24 Powder and Bulk Engineering, March 1987

The loadout is designed so that trucks drive right under the storage bins, making King one of the first flour operations to load directly from bulk storage into a truck.

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The new bulk storage facility is designed so the trucks can drive right under the bins. “We were one of the first flour operations to ever load directly fkm bulk storage to a truck,” said Doyle. “The usual method has been to transfer the product from bulk storage to a smaller loading bin on load

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cells befbre putting it into the trucks.”

The storage bins are designed with Kice fluidized bin bottoms. These use a posi- tive displacement pump unit that diffuses air into the bins and fluidizes the flour, malang it possible to move it.

To reduce the risk of contaminating the flour during storage and loadout, the new loadout hcility is built “inside out”: The structural steel is on the outside, eliminat- ing ledges and other places where flour could be trapped and become contami- nated Insulated panels on the inside pre vide a smooth surface from floor to ceil-

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Filters are mounted nght on top of each of the four bulk storage bins, rather than on platfbrms as they usually are. This enabled King to extend the total height of the bins closer to the ceiling but still have enough headroom for plant personnel to walk around at the top of the loadout facility.

The loadout in operation

“When we bring a truck into position to be loaded, we preset the amount of flour we want put into the trailer,” Doyle said. “When the preset amount is reached, the flow is automatically shut OR” There had been concern that the rapid shutoff of the downward moving flour would cause the bin to rupture, but that hasn’t happened.

The predetermined amount of flour flows t h u g h an automatic damper with a 10- inch spout and drops down into the truck There is a drop of approximately 8 feet h m the bin bottom to the top of the truck

By attaching one end of a sock-like device to the outlet spout and the other to the open hatch on top of the truck, the flour flows through the sock directly into the truck This M-& system is designed to

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Pneumatic lines discharge flour into bins. A Kice filter (lower left corner) is mounted on each line.

Fluidized bin bottoms keep trucks clean by fluidizing the flour, enabling it to be moved across the trailer without developing buildup or distribution problems.

shut down immediately when the opera- tor‘s hand is removed fiom the button.

The loadout process is completed quickly: It takes a driver less than 5 minutes to load 50,000 pounds of flour into a trailer. Many times it’s done in only 3 minutes.

The trailer is loaded fiom one end, but the fluidized product flows smoothly all the way to the other end of the trailer, a dis- tance of approximately 40 feet. “In the four years the system has been in operation, we have had no problems with buildup or dis- tribution,” Doyle said

He attributed this to the speed of the load- out process. Fast loadout keeps the prod- uct cool, which reduces condensation, keeping the flour flowable and the trailers clean.

Production is increased

Kmg is now able to supply enough flour to keep up with its customers’ demands The mill produces an average of 4,800 cwt of flour a day, about five times what it pro- duced in 1959.

“The space created by instahg the origi- nal bulk-storage, high-speed loadout sys- tem in 1983 has allowed us to dramatically in- our production,” Doyle said “We are very pleased with the system. It’s fast and accurate-just what we needed.”

Dual outlets on the Kice fluidizing bin bottom allow stored flour to go either to the mill’s packaging area or to the truck loadout. A Kice airlock meters flow from one outlet, while a butterfly valve discharges a free-flowing stream of flour from the other.

Kice Industries, Wichita, KS. #353

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