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Case Study
System at Ohio Flour Mill Includes 150-HP Fans, Automated Monitoring

SafeGrain, Inc. • 800-659-8250 http://www.safegrain.com

Case Study - Positive Aeration for Wheat

The three 250,000-bushel GSI corrugated steel tanks constructed at the new Star of the West Milling Co. flour mill in Willard, OH (419-964-6000) are outfitted with some of the largest aeration fans ever installed on a grain storage tank of that size.

Star of the West, with roots in the milling business since 1854, and Safe-Grain Inc., Loveland, OH-based aeration, grain temperature detection and dust control equipment manufacturer (800-659-8250), have a 60-year-plus relationship, so Safe-Grain understands the flour miller’s needs. Two centrifugal fans rated at 150-hp and supplied to Star of the West by Safe-Grain are installed on each of the three tanks. They supply 1/7 cfm per bushel to stored wheat.

“We’ve done a lot of work with Safe-Grain in the past,” says Gary Pickelmann, corporate milling superintendent at Star of the West. “They always offer a quality product.”

Each roof includes five 1.5-hp roof exhaust fans to assist aeration and prevent condensation.

Huge as those aeration fans are, he notes, they aren’t Star of the West’s first experience with 150-hp aeration fans. Several were installed more than a decade ago at the company’s flour mill in Ligonier, IN.

Aeration System Specifications

The three tanks on which the fans were installed stand 60 feet in diameter and 98 feet 10 inches tall at the eaves. They were completed by the general contractor – R.W. Mercer, Jackson, MI (517-787-1970) – in June 2016 just in time for Ohio’s soft red winter wheat harvest.

One major reason for so much air power is that small grains such as wheat pack much more tightly in the tank than coarse grains such as corn and soybeans commonly grown in the Eastern Corn Belt.

Each of six Safe-Grain 150-hp centrifugal fans are outfitted with silencers.

Perhaps more importantly, explains Pickelmann, is the need to push air up through a grain mass nearly 100 feet deep. “After the footings were poured for the tanks, we decided to go taller than we originally planned, since the footings would allow us to store more grain in the same footprint.”

Each of the six positive-airflow fans push a whopping 46.1 inches of static pressure, a measure of total output. Most fans commonly found on steel tanks at grain elevators typically top out around 20 inches of static pressure.

These fans then deliver air through 1,382 square feet of aeration tunnel per tank beneath the tanks’ flat floors.

To assist drawing air up through the tanks, each 30-degree roof has five 1.5-hp roof exhaust fans. These also help keep condensation out of the roof spaces, which in turn, protects the quality of the wheat in storage.

In spite of the size of the fans, they are remarkably quiet. In order to be a good neighbor at the mill’s location on the edge of town, Star of the West specified the installation of large silencers on each centrifugal fan. These are similar to silencers already in use at the company’s flour mill in Churchville, NY and at numerous other Star of the West locations.

With the silencer installed, the 150-hp fans, despite their size, deliver 85 db of sound at a distance of 10 feet. The roof exhausters deliver 71 db at 10 feet, which is quieter than some office spaces.

The aeration system also includes an automated wireless monitoring system, which can alert the facility operator via e-mail to a PC workstation or via text message to a smartphone in the event the fans should require repairs or allow stored grain temperature to exceed preset parameters such as temperature. This essentially gives the operator access to aeration data anywhere in the world. For security reasons, the system does not allow fan operational settings to be altered remotely.

Interior view shows the configuration of five 1.5-hp Safe-Grain roof exhaust fans around the 30-degree sloped roof.

Grain Temperature Monitoring

In addition to the aeration system, Safe-Grain also supplied an 11-cable SafeTrack wireless grain temperature monitoring system for each of the three tanks. Again, this system allows for remote transmission and viewing of grain temperature viewing, scanning, and reporting via the Internet. The operator can access the data via PC workstation or smartphone.

Reprinted from GRAIN JOURNAL January/February 2017 Issue


About SafeGrain, Inc.

Dayton, OH
800-659-8250
513-398-2500
http://www.safegrain.com

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