AN UPDATE ON THE FARLEIGH EVAPORATORS

THE evaporator stage at Farleigh mill has under-performed in recent years and at times has limited the overall crushing capacity at the factory. The stage was reassessed in the 2007 season in view of the proposed closure of Pleystowe mill in the 2009 season and the resulting requirement for increased crushing capacity at Farleigh mill. The assessment of the evaporator stage at Farleigh mill in the 2007 season noted several deficiencies, including the design philosophy of splitting juice to smaller vessels in the same effect through parallel juice flow. Previous measures introduced to monitor the performance of the evaporators and counter imbalances in juice flows to the smaller vessels have fallen into disuse following de-manning of the evaporator stage at Farleigh mill. This paper reports on measures to improve production capacity of the Farleigh evaporator stage during the 2008 season. In particular, the conversion of a juice circuit from parallel to series flow for the fourth effect is evaluated for operations during the 2008 season.