Development and Performance Evaluation of a Castor Seed (Ricnus Communis) Shelling Machine with a Winnowing System

This study reports the development and performance evaluation of a castor seed shelling with a winnowing system using locally available materials. The winnowing unit does the cleaning of the castor seed after shelling with the help of fan. The machine consists of a hopper, shelling cylinder, concave, bearing, bolt and nuts, cleaning unit, pulley, grain outlet, shaft, prime mover seat and frame. The developed machine was evaluated using variety of (IAR) castor seed in a factorial experiment with five levels of cylinder speed (220, 20, 260, 280 and 300 rpm), three levels of concave clearance (15, 20, and 28 mm) and three cylinder types (metal, rubber and wood) in a completely randomized design (CRD). Data collected for shelling efficiency, cleaning efficiency, mechanical grain damage, scattered losses and output capacity were analyzed using a statistical analysis software (SAS), where analysis of variance (ANOVA) and the Duncan multiple range test (DMRT) were computed at 1 and 5% levels of significance. The results showed that the best cylinder types in descending order were metal, rubber and wood while cylinder speed of 220 rpm was optimum for all the cylinder types. However, the optimum concave clearance varies with the cylinder types as 15, 20, and 28 mm respectively. While the corresponding optimum values for output capacity, cleaning and scattered seeds were17.90 kg/h, 97.26, 78.20 and 0.51%;12.19 kg/h, 78.91 and 0.36%; 14.78 kg/h, 67.96, and 1.67%, respectively.Keywords—Keyword: Castor seed shelling machine, winnower, castor seed, and machine design