A Manually Operated Cassava Grating Machine

The design and development of a manually operated cassava grating machine prototype are presented. The prototype grater is shown to be easy to operate at 30 - 45 rpm to give a product whose quality is as good as that from motorized graters at a throughput of 125 - 185 kg/h. The prototype grater is a powerful alternative to the sedentary drudgery and pain-inflicting process involved in the traditional grating method

A Kitchen Appliance for Shelling Egusi

"Egusi" is the common Nigerian name for the food seeds considered to be of the Citrullus Sp. and inclusively known as "melon" seeds. On the basis of experience gained in the design and construction of a spinning disc "melon" seed shelling machine for large scale factory applications, a kitchen appliance of shelling egusi was designed. The prototype was constructed as an accessory to a kitchen blender. The performance test showed that the appliance performed satisfactorily with a shelling effectiveness of nearly 100% and minimum percentage breakage of about 8% at a capacity of about 10 kg/h

Design of a Continuous-Process Gari Frying Machine

A prototype gari frying machine, designed to faithfully simulate the traditional manual frying technique, was fabricated and tested. The prototype consists of a 1.7m long semi-circular frying trough of 57 cm diameter, and a gang of sixteen spring-loaded spatula-like paddles evenly spaced within the trough. Electric-motor driven and designed to oscillate through about 1800 at 40 reversals per minute, the paddles press the automatically/continuously metered gari mash against the hot trough when moving in one direction and then scrape the mash off, stir it and move it forward when moving in the opposite direction. The prototype produces a continuous flow of fried gari at 66 kg/hr. The prototype has a provision for manual operation when it produces 20 to 45 kg of gari per hour

Development of a Ridge Profile Weeder

The prototype weeder described in this paper consists of a ground-driven rotating horizontal short shaft which is connected by universal joints to two gangs of rotary hoe weeders. With the short shaft nearly at the bottom of a furrow between two ridges, the gangs of weeders lie on the sides of the two ridges. The universal joints make it possible to angle the weeder gangs with respect to the horizontal shaft to make the gangs conform to the profiles of the sides of the ridges facing the common furrow. The operator walks in the furrow and simply pushes the weedier along to weed one side each of two ridges. Thus the weeder can handle any crop planted on ridges, irrespective of the height of the plants. The shares on the gangs of the rotary hoe weeders are independently adjustable to facilitate reaching the surface of any ridge. Field tests show that this weeder is very effective in controlling young weeds where only light earthling up is required

Tractability Conditions for Disc Ploughing on a Loamy Sand Soil in the Ilorin Agro-Ecological Zone

For agricultural field operations such as tillage and planting, an agricultural soil is considered tractable if it can develop adequate shear resistance to minimize tyre slip and soil damage and can produce required soil tilth without undue soil pulverization or the formation of large clods. Furthermore, the soil must be devoid of physical obstructions like stones, stumps, ant-hills, etc and be of a light vegetative cover. Tractability conditions for disc ploughing on a loamy sand soil based on soil moisture have been determined for Ilorin agro-ecological zone, which fall within the Guinea Savannah zone of Nigeria. This was achieved by carrying out disc ploughing on an experimental plot at thirteen different soil moisture levels ranging from 8.90 to 91.74% of field capacity. The tyre slip and wheel sinkage measured at each soil moisture level, were used to judge whether the soil was tractable or not. Soil is adjudged tractable if the observed tyre slip is either 15% or less. The corresponding soil moisture range was selected as the soil moisture condition at which the soil is tractable. It was found that the loamy sand soil of Ilorin agro- ecological zone was tractable between soil moisture levels of 8.90 and 60.08% of field capacity. Results showed that differences in soil moisture distribution along the slope of the land had no significant (P< 0.05) effect on the towing force and the drawbar pull of the tractor. However, differences in soil moisture levels had significant effect on them. Furthermore, data such as towing force, drawbar pull, soil cone index and tyre slip generated and analyzed using regression analysis, were used to establish empirical trafficability prediction equations; which are useful in studies of soil-machine interactions