Ja'afar, Muhammad Salih

Universiti Putra Malaysia Institutional Repository

UPM Research Report 1997-2000, Section 2-Extended AbstractsDesign and Development of an Oil Palm Loose Fruits MachineMuhammad 5alih Haji Ja'afarFaculty of EngineeringUniversiti Putra Malaysia43400 UPM, Serdang, SelangorMalaysiaE-mail ofCorrespondingAuthor:salih@eng.upm.edu.myKey words: oil palm, loose fruits collector, agricultural machinery, mechanisation, loose fruits collecting device.IntroductionOil palm loose fruits are frequently leftin the fields uncollected during theharvest. If only 1% of the loose fruitsare not collected in a hectare, losses areestimated to be more than 80,000 tonesof crude palm oil. Manual collecting ofthe loose fruits is found to be timeconsuming and backbreaking opera-tion. About 30% of the harvest time isspent for the loose fruits collection. Atpresent, most of the loose fruits arecollected manually using woodenscrappers, rakes and other handy de-vices. It has been estimated that thecapacity for manual collecting of loosefruits is about 1.2 kg/min. The fruitsare then transferred to a wheelbarrowand carried to the roadside for collec-tion by trailer or lorry. They are thentransported to oil palm processing mill.Materials and MethodsVarious techniques of oil palm loosefruits collection were tried and tested.These include the indirect suction andthe blowing technique for collectingthe loose fruits. A 2.25 kW petrol en-82gine was used and various collectingdevices were designed for the differenttechniques.Results and DiscussionThe loose fruits collecting machine wastested in the fields. For the indirectsuction technique, the machine wasable to collect 0.96 kg/min of the loosefruits with no foreign materials col-lected in the fruit container and thefruits were free from any injury. Thecollecting capacity for the blowingtechnique was about 0.75 kg/min with-out any fruits injury, although fewforeign materials were trapped in thecollecting box (2.6%). The mobility ofthe machine, design of the air hose,size and features of the collecting boxinfluenced the overall performance ofthe machine. The machine operatorskills also contributed quite signifi-cantly to the machine performance.ConclusionsThe oil palm loose fruits machine needto be further improved so as to obtainthe collecting capacity of at least 1.5kg/min with no fruit injury and lessthan I% of foreign materials trapped inthe collecting box.Benefits of the studyThe development of the oil palm loosefruits machine may help the oil palmindustry recover most of the crudepalm oil that might be lost due to theuncollected loose fruits in the oil palmplantations .•Literature cited in the textNone.Project Publications inRefereed JournalsNone.Project Publications inConference ProceedingsNone.Graduate ResearchYammey Bayang. 1999. PlantationManagement [M.S. (Agric)]. UniversitiPutra Malaysia.Research funded bv the Inten~ification of Researchin Priority areas IIRPA) - Supported by IRPA(1996-2000). Cycle 1996. Grant 0l-m-O:l.oJ35.

Design and development of an oil palm loose fruits machine

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Design and development of an oil palm loose fruits machine

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