PROJECT
INCORPORATING COLD CHAIN
1 2 3
Cooling of products is done in forced
air-cooling tunnels with vertical fixed
galvanised steel racking. Each tunnel has
three centrally mounted suction fans of 1
000mm diameter, with 5,5kW motors. Each
fan motor is fitted with a VFD to vary the fan
speeds according to the specific cooling
programme and to optimise power usage.
From the cooling tunnels, the cooled
pallets are transferred into five regular
atmosphere cold rooms. Rails for mobile
racking have been included in the
floor of one holding room for possible
installation of a mobile raking system at
a later stage.
Cooled products are received and
dispatched thruough 10 insulated
loading bays with vertical roll up doors,
docking seals and docking levellers.
Four of the loading bays have been
separated from the others to handle the
dispatch of pallets under the sterilisation
programme.
Tautliners with un-cooled fruit are off
loaded in an undercover drive-thru bay.
Compliance with fire regulations required
that sprinklers had to be installed in all the
cold rooms dispatch/receiving air lock
and offices. A further costly requirement
of the fire protection system was the
installation of two 500 000l water storage
tanks and a pump room with two high
pressure pumps – one driven by an
electric motor and the other by diesel
engine to start automatically in the event
of loss of grid power during a fire.
The sprinkler system is of a two-stage
design to prevent a full discharge of
water at the start of what could be a
small trace of smoke and cause costly
and unnecessary damage. In the event
of the intensity of the smoke increasing
the discharge changes to full capacity.
A containerised diesel driven 1250kVa
generator, in close proximity to the plant
room, powers the refrigeration plant to
1. Safety is a priority and operators are warned about damage that can be caused due to
incorrect stacking of racks in the cooling tunnels.
2. Accordance with SANS10147 operating conditions and charge of the ammonia plant is
displayed outside the plant room.
3. Three suction fans in a plenum draw air through pallets stacked in racks in the cooling
tunnels.
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www.coldlinkafrica.co.za COLD LINK AFRICA • October 2020