World Grain - June 2012 - 32

FEATURE: RISING UP FROM THE RUBBLE

About Haiti
Location: Caribbean, western third of the island of Hispaniola, bordering the Dominican Republic, 710 miles southeast of Miami Area: 27,560 sq km (nearly identical in size to Massachusetts) Population: 9,993,000 Natural hazards: Situated in midst of a hurricane belt; occasional flooding and earthquakes Average annual income per capita: $671 (world’s poorest country outside of Africa) Life expectancy at birth: 61.4 years Languages: French and Creole Religion: Roman Catholic, 80%; Protestant, 16%; other, 3%; none, 1% (voodoo practiced by 50% of Haitians) Other facts: Discovered by Columbus in 1492; declared independence from France in 1804; and inaugurated democratically elected president in 2006, Michel Martelly. within the existing mill), raising capacity to nearly 14,000 cwts, and capacity was raised yet again, to 16,000 in 2007, which is where it stood when the earthquake hit. PREPARING FOR EARTHQUAKES, HURRICANES Memories of the devastation caused by the quake and a determination to do everything possible to protect the mill from future natural disasters informed a wide range of decisions when it came to the somewhat unconventional design of the new mill, Gutsch said. In particular, the new mill is designed to withstand hurricane gusts of 145 miles per hour and was built to Seismic Design Category D standards (buildings in areas subject to severe and destructive earthquakes but not located near a major fault). The mill has some natural protections against the elements. The complex is built into a nicely landscaped hill, terraced above the port. The mill itself is about 20 feet above sea level, and the ofﬁces are another 10 feet higher. While the original mill, built in 1959, was a solid structure mostly of concrete, it proved particularly vulnerable to an earthquake, Gutsch said. “Concrete is strong in terms of compression, but is not always as forgiving in seismic conditions,” he said. “The new mill has a massive steel structure. The size of the individual members, bolted steel construction, all are dictated by the load requirements. Steel is strong
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Les Moulins d’Haiti, and the diesel fueled power plant is the only source of electricity for the entire complex. The entire reconstruction project cost $55 million, including two wheat milling units and a corn mill. TWO 9,000 CWT WHEAT FLOUR UNITS The new mill features two identical units with 9,000 cwts of daily ﬂour milling capacity apiece in addition to the corn mill. Each of the wheat mills is able to operate completely independently of one another, and both are able to deliver ﬂour directly to carousel packers, Harsveld said. The mills each feature 22 rollstands, including seven double highs and with aggregate roll surface of 4.58 meters per 100 kg per 24 hours. Total break roll length is 27.5 meters. Five sifters provide 320 square meters of sifter surface. The ﬂow of the mill does not include puriﬁers. “Our product mix doesn’t require puriﬁers,” Harsveld said. “There isn’t much of a market for farina in Haiti. We don’t make specialty ﬂours.” Expanded bulk storage at the mill allows LMH to accumulate enough ﬂour to run a single 12-hour shift on the packaging line. “We no longer have to pack ‘on line,’” Harsveld said. “We have three carousel packers. We had none before.” The corn mill has the capacity to grind 140 tonnes of corn each day. The complex has grain storage of about 45,000 tonnes. A warehouse has storage capacity of 22,000 bags of ﬂour. LOOKING FOR ENERGY EFFICIENCIES Traditionally, low-proﬁle mills offer milling companies up front cost savings but higher energy costs in the long-run because of diminished use of gravity for the mill ﬂow. While the low-proﬁle design at LMH was driven by safety rather than cost considerations, Harsveld said a number of steps were taken to offset the higher prospective energy costs. “Elevator lifts rather than pneumatics are used at various points in the ﬂow for
June 2012 / World Grain / www.World-Grain.com

in terms of both compression and tension. That’s the basic difference.” Several months into the cleanup phase after the earthquake it was determined the mill’s foundation, which initially appeared to escape undamaged, would need to be replaced. While the ﬁnding caused extensive delays, the requirement to unearth the foundation was not without a silver lining. “Even before the earthquake we had planned to add a new maize mill and were going to use a separate building,” Gutsch said. “With the need to build a new foundation, we were able to conﬁgure the maize mill alongside the wheat ﬂour mill, which gives us efﬁciencies.” The reinforced concrete used in the foundation and other parts of the new mill features far more steel rebar than is typical in such projects. In addition to materials, the most notable departure from standard mill design was the decision to opt for a facility with most of the roller mills placed on the ground ﬂoor, to meet the strenuous seismic codes. “As the project neared completion, one of the owners remarked darkly that even if the world were to come to an end, this new mill would be ready to start up the next day,” Gutsch said. Besides the ﬂour mill, the maize mill and the port, the complex also features a small water desalinization facility installed in 2004 and a power plant expanded in 2003 and 2006. Both survived the earthquake. National supplied power is not available to

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World Grain - June 2012

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