Innovative design improvements in milling tandem for energy....

Proceedings of 75th Annual Convention of STAI: 360 – 376 2017

INNOVATIVE DESIGN IMPROVEMENTS IN MILLING TANDEM

FOR ENERGY EFFICIENCY AND EASE OF MAINTENANCE

J.K. Kharbanda1 & K.P. Vasanthan2

ABSTRACT
The evolution of mill design started since 1900 and continues even a century
later. It evolved from human effort driven mills of high level sophistication
after transiting through various type of drives steam engine, steam turbines,
DC motors, hydraulic motor and now finally AC drive. Similarly transmission
of power has evolved from foot mounted train of open gear & tail bar to shaft
mounted planetary gearbox & AC motor driving each roller independently. All
this technology will led to the overall increase in drive efficiency from 70 % to
over 98 %.
This paper describes the salient features of improved design operation &
maintenance friendly milling tandem which consists of pinionless mill, swivelling
inter carrier, duck beak scraper arrangement, innovative under feed roller &
artistic mill piping.
ISGEC has supplied more than 150 milling tandems across the globe & always
endeavours for continuous improvement. This has led to the design of the mills
which are efficient, customer oriented and maintenance friendly.

Keywords: Pinionless mill, Assist drive, Maintenance friendly, swivelling IRC,

Duck beak scraper, Innovative UFR.

INTRODUCTION
This paper describes the innovative features developed by us for milling tandem,
which helps in mill extraction, higher throughput at lower power consumption

1
Sr.Vice President, E-mail: jkkharbanda@isgec.co.in
2
Engineer, E-mail: kp.vasanthan@isgec.co.in
ISGEC Heavy Engineering Ltd.

FACTORY ENGINEERING—360
J.K. Kharbanda & K.P. Vasanthan
Proceedings of 75th Annual Convention of STAI: 360 – 376 2017

at the same time being operation & maintenance friendly. Some of the key
features detailed in this paper are

Features Benifits
1. Pinionless mill - Energy efficient
2. Assist drive with pinion in place - Through put raise
3. Swivelling Inter rake Carrier - Ease of maintenance
4. Duck beak arrangement - Lower re-absorption
5. Innovative UFR - Ease of setting
6. Artistically designed mill piping - Good mill sanitation

PINIONLESS MILL
Pinionless mill is a boon to sugar industry. 50% of plant power is consumed
by mill section alone. The energy efficient pinionless mill has enormous
advantages when compared with conventional mill having foot mounted drives
coupled through tail bar coupling or rope coupling.
Case study I: Ø 1067 mm X 2135 mm Jay Mahesh Sugar Industries Limited,
Maharashtra,-5000 TCD
ISGEC pioneered 4-roll pinionless mill to Indian sugar industry in 2007, the
debu installation at JAYAMAHESH was a single mill of size Ø 1067 mm x 2135
mm long, after witnessing its remarkable performance, they ordered 2 more
such mills in 2008 & 2009 consecutively. The plant is running successfully
for past 9 crushing seasons, with negligible maintenance. Actual photograph
of installation is shown in fig 1.
The drive arrangement of 4-roll pinionless mill is empirically designed to fit
in confined space. It is listed in table 1.
There is one more variant in this configuration which caters for higher through
put, & Energy efficiency.
Case study II: Ø 1170 mm X 2134 mm SAN DIEGO, Guatemala (Central
America) - 15000 TCD
The case of SAN DIEGO is intricate the client has a vision of being energy
efficient sugar factory in Central America. So they require 15000 TCD plant
with 5 nos mill of Ø 1170 X 2134 mm long, crushing 15000 TCD with this
configuration is impractical. But ISGEC broke a myth by introducing a novel
way of drive arrangement. It is listed in table 2. The photograph of actual
installation is shown in fig 2 & fig 3.

FACTORY ENGINEERING—361
Innovative design improvements in milling tandem for energy....
Proceedings of 75th Annual Convention of STAI: 360 – 376 2017

The plant is commissioned in 2014, for past three seasons it is running

efficiently, the performance results of 2015-2016 crushing season are shown
in table 3.
ISGEC has supplied 4 milling tandems of pinionless design, which are
successfully running in India and abroad for last 9 years. 3 more such tandems
are under execution.
The advantage of ISGEC pinionless mills are
 Elimination of tail bar/rope coupling & crown pinions from a system results
in reduced the wear & tear, reduced power consumption up to 15%.
 The tandem with lesser wear tear consumes 15 % lesser lubricants &
ensures higher service life of equipments.
 Pinion free mill top roller floats easily and reduces mill choking, also it
facilitates running of top & bottom rollers at a different speed, a feature
which increases mill extraction efficiency.
 Reduced stress level in the mill headstock increases the mill reliability
even at high crushing rate.
 Pinionless mill saves 50 % of the foot space, this reduces huge civil cost
& misalignment between drive & mill.
Finite element analysis carried out for both conventional and Pinionless mill.
Sharp reduction in stress levels are shown in figure 4 & 5.

ASSIST DRIVE WITH PINION IN PLACE

The assist drive, with set of crown pinion in place is a power enhancer. This
experiment is first of its kind in India with electric drive. It’s a bonanza for
conventional plants who want to increase the capacity with minimal capital
investment. The benefit of the system is to increase through put, without
discarding existing drive arrangement. The assist drive with pinion in place
is shown in figure 6.
Case study: Jaywant Sugars Ltd., Maharashtra – 2500 TCD increased to 4000
TCD
Case of Jaywant Sugar, where the idea of pinionless mill was transformed
into “Assist drive with pinion in place” it has been successfully executed. The
idea was to enhance the power on the conventional 3–roller mill with TRPF by
supplementary power on the discharge roller with addition of shaft mounted
drive on one end while retaining the crown pinion on other end to receive
power from the main mill motor. The drive power details are shown in table 4.

FACTORY ENGINEERING—362
J.K. Kharbanda & K.P. Vasanthan
Proceedings of 75th Annual Convention of STAI: 360 – 376 2017

The real challenge behind the success is synchronization of main DC motor

with DC assist drive. The synchronization is done through specially developed
program of load sharing, where in main motor acts as a master & assist drive
motor as a slave.
The ratio of the installed power to consumed power on main motor will be
taken as master and the same will be maintained in the assist drive. The
assist drive motor interlocked with main drive motor, the start command will
be given only to main motor, the main motor starting will be considered as an
input for assist drive motor. Gearbox ratio of assist drive is selected identical
to the reduction ratio in existing open gear train. So the final speed of assist
drive will be identical to the speed of crown pinion. the actual installation of
assist drive shown in fig 7.
The performance results of JAYAWANT sugar for 2016- 2017 & 2015-2016
are listed in table 5.
The advantages of such assist drive with pinion in place are
 Increased cane through put
 Existing drive will be retained as it is.
 Minimal foot space required
 Minimum cost of investment

SWIVELING RAKE INTER CARRIER

The objective of the design is to reduce the maintenance time and aesthetically
improved milling tandem.
In conventional inter rake carrier arrangement the mill maintenance work is
cumbersome process. To replace any mill roller complete inter rake carrier
need to be dismantled. After assembly re-alignment of inter rake carrier is
a big issue and overall the exercise consume a lot of time in days. In swivel
design, mill maintenance time is drastically reduced to few hours. The tilting
arrangement of IRC shown in fig 8.
The maintenance of mill can be done by tilting inter rake carrier. This creates
sufficient space for maintenance work. For tilting of inter rake carrier a simple
fabricated stubbed shaft consisting of pipe at the centre and solid rod at the
end is welded with inter rake carrier bottom trough. The stubbed shaft is
hinged in Plummer block which is mounted on column.
To tilt the inter rake carrier with minimal effort centre of gravity of inter rake
carrier is kept near to the hinge. The mill house crane can be used for tilting

FACTORY ENGINEERING—363
Innovative design improvements in milling tandem for energy....
Proceedings of 75th Annual Convention of STAI: 360 – 376 2017

of IRC. The difference in operating and maintenance condition of IRC shown

in fig 9 & 10.
 Fixed tail end of IRC increases ploughing efficiency, reduces rake rubbing
in bagasse heap, shrink the overloading of drive & minimize jamming of
IRC
 Drive arrangement of IRC is through shaft mounted helical gearbox with
motor mounted over the gearbox. This arrangement reduces the space
required for drive with elimination of conventional components like base
frame & coupling.
 Stenting arrangement done by fine quality twin set screw Jacks coupled
with common shaft on head end. So the adjustment of chain becomes
effortless, simply one person can adjust the chains from any side of IRC
with single hand
 The IRC structure reliability increase with shaft mounted gearbox, due to
very less forces on structure compared with structure consisting of foot
mounted drive.

DUCK BEAK SCRAPER ARRANGEMENT

Bagasse moisture is a tool to measure the mill performance, poor moisture
not only affects the mill efficiency it also affects the boiler efficiency. The duck
beak scraper arrangement shown in fig 11 is designed to reduce moisture by
controlling re-absorption.
The bagasse from the top roller and discharge roller is expelled from the mill
by the continuous feeding of cane coming from trailing rollers. The compressed
bagasse is allowed to have a controlled expansion, between the top scraper
and discharge scraper, such that it is not directly exposed to air to expand
at its own. 
Rather it is exposed to air after passing through the narrow passage created in
between the swing plate and bottom scraper. The gap between the top scraper,
swing plate and discharge scraper is pre-determined empirically.
The swing plate is pressurized by predetermined hydraulic force. It exerts a
uniform pressure on exit bagasse. The swing plate is provided with unique
swinging action to take care of variation in cane feed. The necessary compression
force in swing plate is achieved by the hydraulic cylinder mounted on the
headstock. The piston of the hydraulic cylinder is hinged with swing plate.
The stroke of the cylinder is set as per the mill setting formulas.

FACTORY ENGINEERING—364
J.K. Kharbanda & K.P. Vasanthan
Proceedings of 75th Annual Convention of STAI: 360 – 376 2017

The swing plate's on other end is hinged on headstock. The top scraper is
clamped on bracket plate which is hinged on the on top roller bearing housing,
such that it always lifts with the top roller and there is no relative motion
between the top scraper and top roller. This unique action ascertains the
positive contact of top scraper and top roller.
The discharge scraper is provided with a no. of holes in the compression
zone to help drain excess juice left over in the exit bagasse, thus minimizing
the moisture of the outlet bagasse. The juice passed through the holes is
collected at the juice tray. The top and bottom scraper are equipped with wear
compensator arrangement. The scraper position at top roller rest and lifted
condition are shown in fig 12 & 13.
The rewards of duck beak arrangement
 The duck beak arrangement effectively prevents re-absorption and rewards
lesser moisture in bagasse.
 The boiler efficiency depends on the calorific value of fuel, moisture in fuel
affects the calorific value, so moisture reduction by duck beak arrangement
directly boost the bagasse calorific value &indirectly boost the boiler
efficiency.
 Reduced re-absorption proportionally reduces the sugar loss through
bagasse, reduced sugar loss compounds to high extraction.
 In conventional mills due to re-absorption, the repeated extraction of juice
consumes more power. it will reduced with aid of duck beak arrangement. 

INNOVATIVE UFR
The innovative UFR is maintenance and operation friendly improved design
with simple mounting arrangement for, four roller inclined set mills shown
in figure 14 & 15.
The UFR roller is mounted on this hinge bracket having bearing for UFR roller.
The one end of the hinge bracket is mounted on side cap of the head stock
and other end is provided with the nut and bolt assembly for adjustment.
This system can be fitted at hinge pin and maintenance/ fitting of scraper
can be attended with ample work space.
The significant quality of this arrangement is
 This system is suitable for both grooved under feed roller and toothed
under feed roller.

FACTORY ENGINEERING—365
Innovative design improvements in milling tandem for energy....
Proceedings of 75th Annual Convention of STAI: 360 – 376 2017

 The UFR setting become handy and quicker, enormous time for setting
cane be saved with this arrangement.
 Interchanging of grooved roller and toothed roller can be done when ever
required,
 Scraper adjustment can be easily carried away without disturbing UFR
assembly.
 The shim plate for UFR setting is completely removed in this design

ARTISTIC MILL PIPING

Milling tandem consists of lubrication piping, hydraulic piping, bearing cooling
piping and hot/cold water piping.
Conventional mill piping design shown in figure 16, causes lot of hindrances
and problem during dismantling in off-season & mill maintenance during
season. So the artistic piping design mainly focuses on regulating these issues
for ease of operation and maintenance.

MILL LUBRICATION PIPING

The number of lubricating point should be decided on the basis of roller size,
position and fibre load this will enhance the bearing life & shrink the wear
& tear on roller shaft.
The lubrication pipe routing is shown in figure 17 is designed in such a
manner, the pipe line will be precise and there would not be any fouling of
pipeline with mill moving parts or other pipe lines. This diminishes line loss,
maintenance of equipment and eliminates difficulty in identifying the lines
during trouble shooting.
The lengths of flexible hoses are short and exact, to avoid fouling with crown
wheels, mill roller shaft & pressure feeder shafts. It will evade breakage or tear
of hoses, lubricant spillage in floor, mixing of lubricant in juice, lubrication
unit pressure drop and higher lubrication consumption.

BEARING COOLING PIPING LAYOUT

In traditional bearing cooling system the open funnel collection of hot water
will cause increased contamination of water, line losses and spillages. These
leads to higher capacity of bearing water cooling tower, more fresh water
requirement, blockage of lines and higher capacity pumps.
To avoid these issue the bearing cooling piping is shown in fig 18 is designed
artistically, Both the cold water line from cooling tower and hot water line to

FACTORY ENGINEERING—366
J.K. Kharbanda & K.P. Vasanthan
Proceedings of 75th Annual Convention of STAI: 360 – 376 2017

cooling tower are laid below the mill foundation slab, there shall be no open
connection in the complete bearing cooling system. This will save the head
loss in bearing cooling pumps, and complete elimination bearing cooling pipe
line blockages.

CONCLUSION
The innovative design ISGEC milling tandem with pinionless mill, swivelling
inter rake carrier, duck beak arrangement, Innovative under feed roller &
artistic piping is a step towards, ISGEC target towards energy efficiency and
ease of maintenance.

REFERENCE
1. Goel D.K.& Kharbanda J.K. (2013). 4-roll Pinionless mill: for higher extraction
efficiency& lower friction losses. Proceedings of 72nd Annual Convention
of STAI.
2. Carlos Lopez and Kishor Bhosale (2016). Enhancing milling efficiency and
throughput by adopting differential roll speed and multi- set point control
philosophy - San Diego experience. ISSCT 2015.
3. ISGEC “4-Roll Sugar mill with hydraulically operated duck beak scraper
& hydraulically floating top roller” patent number 201611024031
4. ISGEC “Under feed roller (UFR) mounting arrangement for inclined set
mill” patent application number 201611041355.
5. ISGEC “Tilting type inter rake carrier and arrangement for cane sugar mill”
patent application number 201711002724.

FACTORY ENGINEERING—367
Innovative design improvements in milling tandem for energy....
Proceedings of 75th Annual Convention of STAI: 360 – 376 2017

TABLE 1 – 4-ROLL PINIONLESS MILL ARRANGEMENT, JAYMAHESH

Top roller Shaft mounted drive fitted on both sides of the roller
Feed roller Shaft mounted drive fitted on one side of shaft
Discharge roller Shaft mounted drive fitted on one side of shaft
Under feed roller Driven by top roller through a gear pair

TABLE 2 – 4-ROLL PINIONLESS MILL DRIVE ARRANGEMENT, SAN DIEGO

Top roller Foot mounted drive coupled through rope coupling

Feed roller Shaft mounted drive fitted on one side of shaft
Discharge roller Shaft mounted drive fitted on one side of shaft
Under feed roller Driven by top roller through a gear pair

TABLE 3 – CRUSHING SEASON 2015-2016 PERFORMANCE RESULTS

Reduced Mill Extraction 97.04 %

Crushing rate 14000 TCD
Bagasse Pol 1.55 %
Bagasse Moisture 47.41 %
Imbibition Applied 27.56 % on Cane

TABLE 4 – DRIVE POWER DETAILS

Mill Mill Mill 2015-2016 2016-2017

No. Configuration Size (mm) Power (kw) Power (kw)
Zero 3 roll + TRPF 980 X 1980 450 450
First 3 roll + TRPF 765 X 1525 300 300+75 (discharge)
Second 3 roll + TRPF 765 X 1525 300 300+75 (discharge)
Third 3 roll + TRPF 765 X 1525 300 300+75 (discharge)
Fourth 3 roll + TRPF 765 X 1525 300 300+75 (discharge)

TABLE 5 – PERFORMANCE COMPARISON 2015-2016 VS 2016-2017

Crushing Season Units 2016-2017 2015-2016
Average crushing rate TCD 3507 3049
Average man hours lost % 1.23 4.35
Lubricant consumption Litres/100 Qts cane 0.47 0.7
Bagasse moisture % 48.5 49.72
Sugar loss in Bagasse % of cane 0.55 0.55
RME % 96.25 96.46

FACTORY ENGINEERING—368
J.K. Kharbanda & K.P. Vasanthan
Proceedings of 75th Annual Convention of STAI: 360 – 376 2017

FIGURE 1 – 4-ROLLER PINIONLESS MILL~JAYMAHESH

FIGURE 2 – 2 FOOT MOUNTED DRIVE ON TOP ROLLER-SAN DIEGO

FACTORY ENGINEERING—369
Innovative design improvements in milling tandem for energy....
Proceedings of 75th Annual Convention of STAI: 360 – 376 2017

FIGURE 3 – SHAFT MOUNTED DRIVE ON FEED & DISCHARGE ROLLER-SAN DIEGO

FIGURE 4 – STRESS FIGURE 5 – STRESS REDUCTION

COMPARISON PINIONLESS MILL

FACTORY ENGINEERING—370
J.K. Kharbanda & K.P. Vasanthan
Proceedings of 75th Annual Convention of STAI: 360 – 376 2017

FIGURE 6 – ASSIST DRIVE WITH CROWN PINION IN PLACE – 4000 TCD

JAYAWANT SUGAR

FIGURE 7 – ASSIST DRIVE IN DISCHARGE ROLLER – JAYWANT

FACTORY ENGINEERING—371
Innovative design improvements in milling tandem for energy....
Proceedings of 75th Annual Convention of STAI: 360 – 376 2017

FIGURE 8 – SWIVELLING INTER RAKE CARRIER IN TILTED CONDITION – ADDAX, AFRICA

FIGURE 9 – MAINTENANCE CONDITION FIGURE 10 – OPERATING CONDITION

FACTORY ENGINEERING—372
J.K. Kharbanda & K.P. Vasanthan
Proceedings of 75th Annual Convention of STAI: 360 – 376 2017

FIGURE 11 – DUCK BEAK ARRANGEMENT PATENT FILED

FIGURE 12 – TOP ROLLER FIGURE 13 – TOP ROLLER

AT REST CONDITION AT LIFTED CONDITION

FACTORY ENGINEERING—373
Innovative design improvements in milling tandem for energy....
Proceedings of 75th Annual Convention of STAI: 360 – 376 2017

FIGURE 14 – UFR MOUNTING ARRANGEMENT

FIGURE 15 – UFR IN OPEN CONDITION SHOWING AMPLE SPACE

FOR SCRAPER SETTING

FACTORY ENGINEERING—374
J.K. Kharbanda & K.P. Vasanthan
Proceedings of 75th Annual Convention of STAI: 360 – 376 2017

FIGURE 16 – CONVENTIONAL LUBRICATION PIPING

FIGURE 17 – ARTISTIC MILL PIPING ROUTING SHOWING MODIFIED

LUBRICANT LINE ROUTING

FACTORY ENGINEERING—375
Innovative design improvements in milling tandem for energy....
Proceedings of 75th Annual Convention of STAI: 360 – 376 2017

FIGURE 18 – ARTISTIC MILL PIPING SHOWING MODIFIED PIPE ROUTING

UNDER THE MILL FLOOR

FACTORY ENGINEERING—376