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Category 3: Industrial Buildings and Plants
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Contact
Corentin Dehem
Address Drève Richelle 161
1410 Waterloo, Belgium
Website
De Smet Engineers & Contractors (DSEC) has an established reputation
as agro-industrial integrator, specialising in
agro-industrial
fields such as
sugar, edible oil, biofuels and biochemicals
. It is a world class provider
of engineering, procurement and construction services under a single
point responsibility.
DSEC has a compelling business offering, built on many years
of experience that combines excellence in execution, safety, cost
containment and reliability with a particular focus on
energy saving
initiatives and
sustainability
.
Owner
Ethiopia Sugar Corporation
Architect
De Smet Engineers & Contractors
General Contractor
OIA (India)
Engineering Office
De Smet Engineers & Contractors
Construction Period 01/2012 - 07/2014
De Smet Engineers & Contractors has recently supplied a 13,000 T per
day cane diffuser to one of the largest Ethiopian sugar mills. The
De
Smet TN 115C type
diffuser is composed of a long metallic conveyor
made of
98 articulated frames
moving inside the diffuser casing and
returning underneath it. Each frame is composed of
ribbed perforated
plates
linked to a
steel cylinder
by means of vertical stiffeners equally
distributed on the frame length. Frames inside the diffuser are loaded
with a 2 m high shredded cane bed coming from milling to undergo the
diffusion process. Water is added at the discharge end of the conveyor to
extract the sugar by percolating through the bed before being evacuated
through the perforated plates and collected in dedicated hoppers. The
juice is pumped from the hoppers to the previous extraction stage and the
process is repeated until it reaches a maximum sugar concentration at the
feed end of the diffuser.
The diffuser is
62 m long and 11.5 m wide
.
A model was created of the frames using 1D and 2D elements for
perforated plate ribs and plates as well as shell elements for the cylinders.
The major constraint to deal with was the vertical deformation:
only 1/800
of the 11.5 m span
was allowed so as to limit efforts at the conveyor
rollers. By selecting the right thickness of the cylinder
a maximal
deflection of 10.1 mm was obtained
.
Cane Diffusion Plant - Ethiopia
SE
De Smet Engineers & Contractors
