Design and development of dehusker suitable for fresh arecanut

Arecanut is primarily cultivated for obtaining kernel from its fruit which is chewed in the tender, ripe or processed from. Manual dehusking of arecanut is a slow and tedious process and needs skilled labour. Frequently, due to lack of skilled labour all the fresh areca nuts could not be dehusked immediately. Hence to overcome this problem, farmers are in need of a dehusker for freshly harvested arecanut. Hence, development of suitable unit for dehusking fresh arecanut was contemplated. The physical and mechanical properties of green arecanut and kernel as well as husk were studied. Similarly the effect of compression on the failure of husk and kernel was studied. The husk failed at 0.28 kN of axial loading and the husk and nut failed at 0.36 kN of radial loading. A prototype model which can be operated either manually or by 1.5 kW electric motor was developed with two different types of blades i.e., saw tooth circumferential blades and longitudinal profiled blades. By manual operation the dehusking efficiency were 42 per cent and 63 per cent, respectively for saw tooth and profiled tooth drums. When the dehusker was operated by electric motor the performance was satisfactory with profiled tooth drum. The dehusking efficiency was 82 per cent, damage to kernel was 18 per cent and the capacity was 48 kg of kernel per hour

Draft measurement of five tyne duck foot plough in clay soil

In the present study, the draft requirement of five tyne duck foot plough was studied on clay soil for different soil moisture content, depth of operation and forward speed of tractor using a specially designed three-point hitch dynamometer.  The designed dynamometer was matched with the tractors having category II or III hitch systems. The data acquisition system adopted for the dynamometer had NI WSN-3214 Strain Nodes, NI 9792 WSN real-time Gateway and NI LAB View 2013 software. A data logger program was developed for the three-point hitch dynamometer. The investigation was carried out at that three levels soil moisture content (10-13%, 14-16% and 17-20%), at three different depth of operation (15, 20 and 25 cm) and three levels of the forward speed of tractor (3, 5 and 7 km h-1). The designed dynamometer performed well in all the levels of the experiment. The results showed that draft force required for five tyne duck foot plough was increased (408 kg) with an increase in soil moisture content (17-20%), whereas it was increased (408 kg) with an increase in depth of operation (25 cm) and forward speed of tractor (7 km h-1). The suitable sweep, the forward speed of operation, depth of operation and soil moisture content that influenced the draft force and energy consumption for tillage operation of duck foot type plough were identified and developed duck foot plough was better coverage with better soil operation.              

A pneumatic assisted electronically controlled continuous aonla seed removing machine

A continuous flow aonla (Emblica officinalis) seed removing equipment which consists of a fruit platform, a punching plunger, a plunger driving mechanism, a conveying system, and an electronic control unit has been developed for the removal of seed from aonla fruit.  The machine was evaluated with three different plungers viz. sharp edge, hollow cutting edge, and star cutting edge in different orientation of fruit with three varieties of aonla with variable sized fruits.  The study indicated that the effectiveness of the machine and the percentage fruit pulp wastage varied with the size of fruit.  The highest effectiveness of the machine was observed as 93.94±0.42% with the combination of the apex end punching with hollow edge plunger in set A for NA-7a whereas Kanchan, Chakiya and NA-7b recorded higher effectiveness of 94.47±1.22%, 95.15±0.33% and 94.14±0.49% respectively in set B.  The percentage pulp wastage was 4.05±0.96%, 3.22±0.20%, 3.59±0.43% and 3.93±0.12% for Kanchan, Chakiya, NA-7a and NA-7b, respectively.  The percentage juice wastage for Kanchan, Chakiya, NA-7a and NA-7b was 1.48±0.25%, 1.63±0.15%, 2.47±0.32%, and 1.92±0.61%, respectively.  The evaluation study concluded that apex end punching with 12 mm hollow cutting edge plunger with 15 mm bore platform would be suitable for the deseeding of aonla fruits having less than 35 mm size, while for the fruits having more than 35 mm size, plunger of 15 mm diameter with 18 mm bore platform would be suitable.  The capacity of the developed machine was 90 kg/h or 3000 fruits/h.  The cost of operation including the labor cost and depreciation was calculated to be Rs.0.14 per kg of fruits.Keywords: aonla, aonla seed removing machine, deseeding, punching plunger, continuous seed removing, Indian gooseberry deseedin

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Not AvailableArecanut is primarily cultivated for obtaining kernel from its fruit which is chewed in the tender, ripe or processed from. Manual dehusking of arecanut is a slow and tedious process and needs skilled labour. Frequently, due to lack of skilled labour all the fresh areca nuts could not be dehusked immediately. Hence to overcome this problem, farmers are in need of a dehusker for freshly harvested arecanut. Hence, development of suitable unit for dehusking fresh arecanut was contemplated. The physical and mechanical properties of green arecanut and kernel as well as husk were studied. Similarly the effect of compression on the failure of husk and kernel was studied. The husk failed at 0.28 kN of axial loading and the husk and nut failed at 0.36 kN of radial loading. A prototype model which can be operated either manually or by 1.5 kW electric motor was developed with two different types of blades i.e., saw tooth circumferential blades and longitudinal profiled blades. By manual operation the dehusking efficiency were 42 per cent and 63 per cent, respectively for saw tooth and profiled tooth drums. When the dehusker was operated by electric motor the performance was satisfactory with profiled tooth drum. The dehusking efficiency was 82 per cent, damage to kernel was 18 per cent and the capacity was 48 kg of kernel per hour.Not Availabl