Steeping Tanks
Many grains are soaked or steeped in hot water; rice, malts, maize and then added or passed on to another process. In this case the objective was a draft contractor brief for a method to cool down the workforce as they looked over their steeping process. This inspection could be brief as temperatures on the tank floor were in the mid-thirties, worse at the upper level of the factory.
The main contributary factor was that the enclosed room was heated nicely by the local displacement ventilation system at ground floor, collecting heat from the surrounding processing factory and driving it all upwards around the tanks, just where inspection and product sampling took place. Whatever solution was proposed, no equipment was to be placed over the tanks as, quite correctly, if something fell in there would be a serious contamination problem. We calculated the heat gain to be about sixty kilowatts to be removed by a combination of slotted air delivery grilles and an upgrade to the air extraction fans. Wonder how the project progressed … a phone call?