ALDEN, Iowa - The roughly 5-million-bushel branch elevator at Alden, IA (515-859-3346), operated by Innovative Ag Services, until 2017, consisted of an older concrete house and two flat storage buildings.
Workers at Alden particularly disliked the flat storages. “They were very labor-intensive,” says Location Manager Nathan Frohwein, who came to Innovative Ag 11 years ago after working at several Bunge NA locations in Iowa, Missouri, and Illinois. “It was too slow to move grain in and out of there. We wanted to increase our efficiency, space, and speed.”
One of those flat storage buildings, which held 750,000 bushels, is gone. In its place are three new Sukup corrugated steel tanks, along with new legs and other grain handling equipment.
“Overall we had a gain of about 100,000 bushels,” says Frohwein.
For the project, Innovative Ag took bids and awarded the contract to Buresh Building Systems Inc., Hampton, IA (641-456-5242), to serve as the millwright.
“They’re fairly local, and they did some millwright work for us in the past,” says Project Manager Troy Wegmann, who joined Innovative Ag five years ago from a construction contracting firm. “They did a good job for us.”
Work on the project went fairly quickly, breaking ground at the beginning of June 2017 and finishing up in time for harvest in October.
Buresh constructed three Sukup steel tanks, two holding 515,000-bushels each for general grain storage and a wet tank holding 140,000 bushels.
The two big tanks stand 90 feet c in diameter, 88 feet tall at the eaves, and 112 feet tall at the peaks. They are outfitted with outside stiffeners, flat floors, Sukup 10,000-bph paddle sweeps, 11-cable Integris Pro digital grain temperature monitoring systems that also can monitor grain moisture, and Siemens radar-type level indicators.
A set of six 40-hp Sukup centrifugal fans per tank supply 1/7 cfm per bushel of aeration through in-floor ducting in a 6-parallel run pattern, with four roof exhausters and 29 gravity vents.
The smaller wet tank stands 48 feet in diameter, 88 feet tall at the eave, and 101 feet tall at the peak. It is equipped similarly to the larger tanks but with only five Integris Pro temperature cables and one moisture cable. Two Sukup 50-hp centrifugal fans provide 1/5 cfm per bushel of aeration through a full-floor system, with two roof exhausters and 12 gravity vents.
Adjacent to the wet tank are two new enclosed 1,600-bushel mechanical receiving pits. These feed a pair of Sukup 20,000-bph receiving legs equipped with two rows of Maxi-Lift gray CC-MAX 12x8 buckets mounted on a 28-inch belt.
At the top, grain is deposited into a two-way valve that goes either to a 25,000-bph InterSystems gravity screener or directly to a Schlagel eight-hole swing-set triple distributor, which also can take grain from a new 10,000-bph dry leg.
The distributor sends grain out via overhead 20,000-bph Sukup drag conveyors to the new storage, the existing concrete house, or out to the remaining flat storage via an existing enclosed belt conveyor.
The two larger tanks empty onto 20,000-bph Sukup reclaim drag conveyors in above-ground tunnels running back to the new legs. One of the two big tanks also has two sidedraw spouts.
The wet tank also empties onto a 10,000-bph Sukup reclaim drag running to an existing wet leg serving an existing dryer.
In addition to the storage and handling equipment, Innovative Ag installed four new Donaldson Torit dust collection filters to service the two new receiving pit.
Reprinted from Grain Journal March/April 2018 Issue
