SIMULATION AND AUTOMATION OF A RICE MILL PLANT - DEVELOPMENT OF SIMULATION MODEL -

A rice mill plant with a capacity of 2.5 ton/hr was constructed with automated facilities at Chonnam National University. A simulation model was developed with SLAM SYSTEM for evaluating and improving the rice mill plant. The developed model was validated in the views of hulling efficiency, milling efficiency, milled rice recovery, other materials produced, and bottlenecks in the processes. The results of hulling efficiency, milling efficiency, milled rice recovery in the simulation were, respectively, 81.1%, 89.5%, and 73.1%, while those of the actual mill plant were 81.5%, 90.2%, and 73.5%. The simulation results including the productivity of other materials(chaff, bran, broken rice, stone, etc) produced in the processes were almost similar with those of the actual process. In the simulation the bottlenecks were found out in the processes of separating brown rice and of sorting colored rice. These phenomenon also appeared in the actual process. It needed to increase the hourly capacity of the brown rice separator and the rice color sorter. As the developed model could well express the automated rice mill plant, it could be used for designing and improving rice mill plants. In addition, an alternative model needed to be developed for the system control more accurately and for increasing the rice quality.