One of the leading producers of sugar in the UK approached IFC and asked them to come up with a new system to safely and cleanly load molasses into road tankers using pneumatic powered top loading arm at one of their major processing factories.
Molasses is a syrup by-product of the production process. The site at British Sugar recognised the hazards involved in loading the product into road tankers and wanted a safe, clean, and easy way of doing so.
IFC Solution
Working closely with the client and following their design brief, IFC recommended a 4” pneumatic powered top loading arm complete with control valve, stainless steel fill pipe, and overfill sensor, which activates if the molasses in the tanker gets too close to the top.
The arm has pneumatic power control for easier handling, along with a special pneumatic press down feature. This ensures that as the tanker is filled and naturally lowers onto its suspension, the overfill sensor stays in contact with the top of the tanker at the correct height.
For safe tanker access we supplied a set of FlowStep 4 step folding stairs with a safety cage made specifically for the site. The stairs also had pneumatic power for easy operation.
A key interlock system was installed to ensure the correct loading procedure was followed. IFC also installed and commissioned the whole system.
Project Outcome
The system was installed and commissioned within the specified time-scale and a small adaptation was installed at the client’s request, all to the clients satisfaction. The use of old loading hoses, which were heavy, inefficient and difficult to handle has been replaced by a safe, easy to operate, modern tanker loading system including:
Molasses loading arm with pneumatic control & press down
4 step folding stairs with safety cage & pneumatic power
