Tobacco Tunnel

Project Overview: 62 Ha tunnel built in 1 year to cure a total of 124Ha of tobacco in one season.

Configuration:

• The tunnel is 68m long and 44m wide and can fit 276 trolleys. It is capable of curing 36 trolleys with 180 clips of tobacco per day. It is a two-pass tunnel with 6 lanes of drying, 4 lanes of colouring and 2 lanes cold colouring.
• The tunnel has two heat sources. Each heat source consists of a 3.3m kettle with 3 banks of 3.3m x 1.8m of radiators. The furnace is stoked by a 300lb per hour stoker on an automated thermostat monitoring air and water temperature. There are 2x 3Hp fans and 1x2Hp fan blowing a maximum of 55000cfm of air through the radiators into the tunnel. The humidity and wet bulb in the tunnel are also automatically controlled.