Handling systems sweeten sugar output

New bulk sugar handling systems have upgraded British Sugar plants in York and Wissington, Norfolk, and have raised output and provided a number of other operational and safety advantages.

New bulk sugar handling systems supplied by specialist manufacturer Geo Robson to upgrade British Sugar plants in York and Wissington, Norfolk, have raised output and provided a number of other operational and safety advantages.

The York project has made the system more flexible to enable more sugar to be screened and includes a number of features to counter explosion risks, while the Wissington plant has reduced spillage losses and improved processing flexibility.

The contracts were the latest in a series of projects completed by Robson, a leading supplier of bulk handling equipment to British Sugar for nearly 20 years.

Commissioned during 2002, the Wissington project involved redesigning and optimising the handling system in the company's sugar screening plant.

The new equipment has increased the plant's capacity to deliver various grades of sugar to either the bulk outloading system or the bagging plant.

The system included screw conveyors, elevators, vibratory screens/prefeeders and sugar holding bins.

Robson took out the previous machinery, modified existing equipment and in line with current health and safety requirements, brought the plant up to the latest hygiene and explosion protection and prevention standards.

As well as doubling throughput, the new system has improved production efficiency and flexibility, in line with British Sugar's ISO9002 quality accreditation requirements.

The York project included a first for the industry, with the installation of Robson's innovative, fully enclosed tubular vibratory feeders to give more flexibility for the screening of special sugars; so increasing the volume of sugar that could be screened.

This type of conveyor was used because of the restriction on room; a conventional screw or belt conveyor to give the required capacity would have made the area congested.

Proven in other industries such as cement manufacturing, sealed tubular feeders are able to transport high volumes of bulk materials without loss from spillage or dust.

In addition to these units, York also had 12m single span screw conveyors installed under the bulk bins, which feed and meter sugar at up to 80t/h from bulk storage to road tankers or to the screening process.

With six production plants in the UK working around the clock, every day of the year, British Sugar supplies more than half the country's sugar requirements and is the sole processor of home produced sugar beet, buying nine million tonnes of beet annually from 7000 British farmers.

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