Clean Plant in Fife

In early 2014, K. M. Duncan Agricultural Engineers Ltd. secured a contract to upgrade the handling and drying equipment for Mr Mitchell of Allan Hill Farm, Fife. The farm had an old Law Denis drier which had finally worn out after 24 seasons and could no longer keep up with the required capacity, the previous set up had become dated as modern machines could not easily fit into the buildings to work. When the farm decided to upgrade they chose to install a Perry M310 drier with matching 60tph handling equipment.

The farm’s main focus for drying is wheat, barley & oilseed rape. Their intentions are to put around 2,000 tonnes of product through the drier each year. They are also large producers of Scottish strawberries.

The installation has a large intake pit to allow for fast trailer turn around, but everything else has been installed above ground. From the intake pit the grain passes through a Perry 60tph aspirator cleaner to remove as much dust and chaff as possible before being transported to the drier via a 60tph double lift belt and bucket elevator.

The 22tph Perry drier has been assembled outside and a building has been built around the drier to align the pit and allow for a more efficient flow of product through the system. The drier is tall and narrow to keep the footprint as small as possible. The fans have been mounted vertically to keep the footprint of the drier small and to help with noise reduction as Mr Mitchell has houses either side of the farm and the site office is located next to the drier.

Before the stores are filled the grain passes through a weigher – this allows Mr Mitchell to know exactly how much of each product he has available at any given time. Once the crop has been weighed a series of 60tph Perry inclined, curved and horizontal store conveyors transport the grain to the stores. Mr Mitchell has a total storage capacity of around 2,000 tonnes.

In early 2014, Mr Mitchell had one drier, one aspirator cleaner, one double lift belt and bucket elevator, eight conveyors and a range of ducting & valves installed. The whole system is controlled using the Perry’s PLC drier and plant control panel. This touchscreen PLC panel has been designed and programmed by Perry engineers and is capable of controlling up to ten machines as standard along with the drier. The panel displays a mimic of the complete store as well as having multiple automatic routes available, making it simple to understand and use.

By November 2014, Mr Mitchell was looking to improve his drier by retrofitting the Perry Light Grain & Chaff Recovery System (LGCRS) to it. The LGCRS has been designed to remove the need to clean out light grains and chaff from the drier exhaust plenum. It is a pneumatically operated system that periodically discharges chaff and light directly into the discharge hopper and back to the main grain flow. The pneumatic flap also optimises the airflow then it is in the shut position. Mr Mitchell said “Retrofitting the LGCRS to the drier is the best decision I have made. I checked the inside the exhaust plenum this morning (late August 2015) for the first time this year and there is no dust or chaff in there at all.”