A factory experiment to assess different shredder-hammer configurations

Shredding is critically important to maximising the amount of pol extracted from the supplied cane by the milling tandem or diffuser. Whilst modern shredders typically achieve high levels of preparation (greater than 85 POC), they also use considerable energy, have high maintenance costs and produce much noise. An experiment was undertaken at Rocky Point Mill during the 2016, 2017 and 2018 seasons to evaluate the effect of shredder-hammer configuration on shredder performance in terms of POC, windage, noise, hammer wear rates and hammer-tip wear rates. Two hammer configurations were tested: a conventional checkerboard configuration (114 hammers) and an ‘Alternative 1’ configuration (152 hammers). The results showed that, although there were 33% more hammers in the ‘Alternative 1’ configuration, the POC was surprisingly lower at 87 compared to 88 for the conventional configuration. Furthermore, the mean specific power, noise levels and windage were slightly higher for the ‘Alternative 1’ hammer configuration. The wear rate for the hammers and hammer tips were ~40% and ~68% higher in the ‘Alternative 1’ configuration, respectively. Key words Shredder, sugarcane, cane preparation, added water