Agricultural products such as wheat, barley, rye, oats, maize and rice pass through many stages from field to factory. Specialized processes such as harvesting, storing, conveying, cleaning, drying, sorting and handling use sophisticated logistics to ensure that seasonal products reach the mill, malthouse or other processing plants in perfect condition.
Discharging, loading/unloading using screw conveyors
After being harvested from the fields, the grain is stored initially in silos. This transfer can be performed using screw conveyors. You can choose from our wide selection of helical, parallel-shaft helical and helical-bevel gear units combined with cutting-edge energy-efficient motors to drive the worm.
Drive packages for bucket elevators, screw conveyors, discharge screw conveyors, chain conveyors, tube conveyors, belt conveyors, rotary gate valves and vacuum pumps are also used in this area.
Gathering and storing using bucket elevators
Bucket elevators are used for the vertical transportation of bulk materials into silos. Depending on their width, the bucket capacity and the height of the conveyor line, these elevators require high drive power. For this, we offer a range of helical-bevel and bevel-helical gear units with DRN motors for you to choose from.
In addition to this application, we can also provide drive packages for screw conveyors, chain conveyors, tube conveyors and belt conveyors, among other things, in the field of gathering and storing.
Discharging, loading and unloading using vacuum pumps
When discharging and transporting the bulk material by truck or railroad, a vacuum pump is used to suck it out of the silo.
The majority of vacuum conveying handling tasks involve speeds of 10 to 6000 kg/h, conveyor lines of up to 80 m and conveyor heights of up to 30 m, frequently far below that.
Our helical gear units with DRN motors are among the potential solutions for this.
However, other drive packages are also used for discharging, loading and unloading, e.g. for bucket elevators, screw conveyors, discharge screw conveyors, chain conveyors, tube conveyors, belt conveyors and rotary gate valves. Our large selection of drive technology is available for this.
Cleaning and sorting using rotary gate valves
One key processing step in agricultural logistics is cleaning and sorting. This is where foreign particles are removed and the bulk material is cleaned.
Rotary gate valves are used to remove the silo pressure from the material and ease the load on downstream discharge systems such as conveyors.
However, they are also used for volume-controlled tasks or feeding the bulk material into mixing and processing procedures.
In the case of flammable bulk materials, the rotary gate valve can be used as fire protection, reliably preventing a biomass boiler from backfiring into the pellet store, for example.
Drying using fans
To safeguard the quality of the grain in storage for as long as necessary until further processing, it must be dried appropriately, as well as being cleaned and sorted. This drying occurs with the help of stationary and also mobile drying systems. SEW offers energy-efficient motors of various sizes in the DRN series for this purpose.
We can also provide drive packages for fans, fan motors for continuous dryers and turnkey systems.
Port handling and final processing using belt conveyors
In export ports, the bulk material is stored temporarily in silos awaiting onward transportation.
The material is discharged for loading onto freighters using belt or chain conveyors.
This is where our parallel-shaft helical and bevel-helical gearmotors come in.
Storage, port handling and final processing using cranes
Once it arrives in the import port, the grain is unloaded and transported onward.
When bulk material is transported in “big bags”, for example, cranes are used.
Depending on their power rating and use for other kinds of bulk material, we can provide our high-performance X-series industrial gear units.
Data and documents
Download comprehensive documentation here.