Additional heavy-up module to the Racecourse low-grade continuous pan

A 20 m3 extension to Racecourse Mill's low-grade continuous pan for the 1997 season incorporated many new concepts including the installation of three over-stirrers to improve circulation at the heavy-up stage. The results has seen the pan increased from a two-module (90 m3 capacity) pan to a three-module (120 m3 capacity) pan using common vacuum and incorporating the long flow path principle. the additional module, in conjunction with improved feed control on existing modules, realized an increase in effective crushing rate from 450 tonnes cane per hour (TCH) to 530 TCH in 1997 with an improvement in purity drop across the pan of 5 units compared with 1996 results. Lithium tracer tests verified that the stirrer and baffling design maintained homogenous mixing in each cell and maintained viscosity at desired levels.