MODIFICATION AND EVALUATION OF PERFOMANCE OF A MANUAL SHELLER.SHEZ.pptx

Agriculture

1. EVALUATING THE PERFOMANCE OF A MODIFIED MANUAL MAIZE SHELLER. COMPILED BY: GAVA SHARON SUPERVISOR: MR W GATSI , mr kambadza 1

2. Manual maize sheller 2 Trash outlet hopper Shelling unit Grains outlet pulley

3. BACKGROUND Maize is a staple food crop in Zimbabwe and therefore its availability is of paramount importance in determining the food security goals of the nation. The agricultural sector is hypothesized to be a dynamic sector highly responsive to incentives. This dynamic agricultural environment calls for producers and other key participants in the sub sector to continuously make production and marketing decisions in concomitant with the ever changing environment . The policy makers also need to acquire and understand pertinent information in order to make meaningful policy decisions that will enable sustainable stabilization of agricultural supply. 3

4. BACKGROUND CONT… Moreover, producers make their production and marketing decisions based on these policies. Thus, timeliness and accuracy of this information is relevant in this dynamic sector. Zimbabwe has a dualistic agricultural sector consisting of large scale farmers and a heterogeneous set of smallholder farmers. Using the ZIMSTAT proportions at the national level, 7.8 million people which account for 69% of the population live in the rural areas while the remaining 3.5 4 million live in urban or peri -urban areas (ZIMSTAT, 2010). 4

5. BACKGROUND CONT   Zimbabwean farmers are divided into 2 groups which are large scale and small scale holder farmers. The smallholder or small scale farmers are further sub divided into small-scale commercial sub-sector, the module A1 sub-sector and the communal area sub-sector . The large scale farmers are subdivided into the large scale commercial sub-sector and the module A2 sub-sector. Of Zimbabwe’s total land area (39 million hectares), 33.3 million hectares are regarded as agricultural land while the remaining 6 million hectares have been reserved for national parks, wild life and for urban settlements ( Rukuni et al, 2006 ). 5

6. BACKGROUND CONT’D In relation to maize production, the smallholder sector contributes on average over 60% of the national maize output ( Rukuni et al, 2006). This represented a shift in sub sector contributions since the maize sector in the pre-1980 era was dominated by large scale commercial farmers. The smallholder sector contributed approximately 25% which increased to 31% and 39% of total maize production in the periods 1975-79 and 1980-84 respectively. 6

7. BACKGROUND CONT… Farmers shell bulk of the maize using traditional method of beating on bare ground high physical damage and contamination with foreign matter resulting in low market value and reduced shelf life of the maize. The purpose of this study is to reduce the being incurred and improve the working conditions of farmers and so in line with that , Bahir Dar Agricultural Mechanization and food science research centre [BAMPSRS,2017],adopted two maize shellers the cylindrical [handheld]and the motorized sheller . Manual shellers which are relatively common and sometimes made by local artisans permit easier shelling of maize . Most common manual shellers mostly require control of one person with yields from 14 to 100kgs making it well adapted to the needs of small scale production [ www.fao,srs ]. or loosely packed in sacks and these methods have a low productivity, causing 7

8. PROBLEM STATEMENT Most communal farmers are earning a living through sell of their agricultural produce (grain) to various stakeholders (GMB and private players). As the world is advocating for quality assurance to customers, the market value of grain is governed by its quality by which high quality grain fetches a higher pricing. As most communal farmers are resource constrained, they are unable to afford highly mechanized methods of production up to processing such that the final product is of poor quality this being attributed to traditional methods of processing which include manual threshing using sticks and pestle and mortar. As a result, the market value of the grain is lowered due to poor quality seed (chipped or meshed) thus creating a gap between inputs and outputs .So there is a need to venture into a manual maize sheller to improve the quality of the output. 8

9. MAIN OBJECTIVE The overall objective of this project is to evaluate the performance of a manual corn maize shelling machine. 9

10. SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES 1.To determine the percentage (%) decrease of damaged maize grains from the shelling machines. 2.To determine the percentage (%) decrease of unshelled maize grains of the cobs from the shelling machine. 3.To determine the shelling efficiency of the shelling machine 10

11. JUSTIFICATION Traditional methods of processing the grains will result in achieving a very poor output and quality . This will in return leads to experiencing losses. Therefore This project will help farmers in understanding the amount of losses they are likely to incur during the processing period thereby giving them an estimate on how they can improve the quality of their grain yield so as to meet on consumer requirements and final cost per tonnage of produce on the market. This will close on the gap between inputs to output thus yielding higher returns per capita invested. 11

12. ASSUMPTION The assumption is that the maize grains are equal , same in shape and of the same variety . The machine is guaranteed to improve its shelf life and fulfill its expected task. 12

13. LIMITATIONS The r esearch is going to be carried out in less than a year since the student will be going back to school . Also lack of capital and time will lead the research not to be broadly carried out and this may lead to an assumptive evaluation . The Covid-19 pandemic which affected many parts of the world also greatly affected the situation of the country in a way that it also affected the on-goings of the research. 13

14. DELIMITATIONS This research study is only targeting all buyers so as to minimize the costs as well as achieving a better output without giving in more labor but mostly small holder farmers . Also this maize sheller does not accommodate all varieties of maize grains. 14

15. AREA OF STUDY MAP 15

16. STUDY AREA DESCRIPTION Tanroy Engineering is located 10.8 km from H arare CBD . the head office and factory are housed within its location, Fabrication, machining, sales and distribution of Agro-processing machinery. The company is in the agro region two and receives annual rainfall of 800mm to 1050 mm. The standard machines manufactured there includes Hammer mills , Dehullers , Oil pressing machines and Peanut butter mills , Roasters ,Groundnut shellers as well as Maize shellers . 16

17. MATERIALS AND METHODS Determining the percentage of damaged grains at various speed rates. A fter the maize was shelled by the manual maize sheller . A random sample of 200 kgs was taken and weighed out of each treatment. Afterwards, the broken seeds were isolated using suitable sieves according to the following formula given by Naveenkumar (2011).The weight of the broken grains was also weighed . The amount of damaged maize was then calculated from the weighed measurements using the following formula. Broken grains = Weight of broken grains. Weight of total grains The results from the formula above was then multiplied by 100% so as to express the value of the amount of damaged maize grains as a percentage . 17

18. CONT.. Determining the percentage decrease of unshelled maize . In this objective about 100 maize cobs were used. The maize cobs were then shelled ,after being shelled the seeds were collected after being separated from the cobs in a certain time. Unshelled grains were measured by weighing the amount of unshelled seeds in relation to the weight of the total shelled grains/seeds, and then the result was regarded as percentage according to the following formula given by Vinay (2016) Unshelled grains = Weight of unshelled grains Weight of total grains The results from the formula above was then multiplied by 100% so as to express the value of the unshelled maize grains as a percentage. 18

19. CONT.. Determining the shelling efficiency To carry out this objective, the weight of the shelled maize grains was measured same as the weight of unshelled maize grains using a measuring scale. Shelling efficiency was figured as a percentage by dividing the amount of the unshelled seeds from the kernels, in relation to the total shelled seeds, Shelling efficiency = 100- Weight of unshelled grains (3) Total weight of shelled grains Then the division result is subtracted from 100 according to the above formula given by Al- Desouky et al. (2007) . 19

20. Experimental design A manual maize sheller manufactured at Tanroy engineering company was assessed on how well it operates to produce a maximum shelling efficiency, low grain damage, low unshelled grains and how well these parameters are affected by time, rotational speed and the moisture content of the maize grains. The capacity of a manual maize sheller is 200kg/hr. Appropriate belts for the fan shaft were used Pulleys between 200 mm to 300mm were selected for the experiment. Three replicates of tests were done and the percentages were obtained. The maize grains were poured into the hopper whilst the machine was running. Then the shelling process took place in the shelling unit as the fan blowed off . . 20

21. RESULTS Results under grain damage This shows the effect of rotational speed and grains moisture content on grain damage. It could be seen that the Grain damage increased with increasing the moisture content and increased by increasing rotational speed, where it increased from 0.28 to 0.87% at 14% moisture content, from 1.17 to 1.43% at 18% moisture content and it increased from 0.84 to 1.45% at 22% corn grains moisture content when the rotational speed increased from 80-120 rpm. 21

22. The figure shows the effect of rotational speed and moisture content on grain damage 22

23. Grain damage The statistical analysis of the percentage of grain damage results as affected by rotational speed and grains moisture content showed that there were significant differences between moisture contents. The differences between the grain damage due to the effect of rotational speed and moisture content were significant. Also the analysis showed that the interaction between moisture content and rotational speed was significant. It’s noted that the speed of shelling influenced significantly on the ratio of broken grains, therefore less speed applied experienced in some broken grains, however slightly more speed didn’t accompany any broken grains. This is owing to the fact that the higher rotational speed exceeded the appropriate limit that did not suit the volume of the sheller and shelling mechanism (James et al., 2011; Sobowale et al., 2015 23

24. Results under unshelled grains The following shows the effect of rotational speed and grains moisture content on unshelled grains. It could be seen that the unshelled grains increased with increasing the moisture content and decreased by increasing rotational speed, where it decreased from 1,33 to 0.67% at 14% moisture content, from 1.68 to 0.78% at 18% moisture content and it decreased- from 53.33 to 1.96% at 22% corn grains moisture content when the rotational speed increased from 80- 120 rpm. 24

25. The table shows the effect of rotational speed and moisture content on unshelled grains 25

26. Unshelled grains The statistical analysis of the percentage of unshelled grains results as affected by rotational speed and grains moisture content showed that there were significant differences between moisture contents. The differences between the unshelled grains due to the effect of rotational speed and moisture content were significant. Also the analysis showed that the interaction between moisture content and rotational speed was significant . Increasing the rotational speed of threshing from 80 to 120 rpm accompanied a significant decrease of unshelled grains. this is so obvious, whereby increasing the speed will lead to better separating for the rest of the grains remained attached to the cobs, that made the ratio of unshelled grains lesser ( Azeez et al., 2017) 26

27. Cont …. . The interaction between moisture content and speed of shelling had a significant impact upon less unshelled grains. The interaction between moisture content, speed of shelling and feeding rate had a significant effect on the ratio of unshelled grains, while a greater speed significantly recorded better results in the least unshelled grains ratio with all the treatment. 27

28. Results under shelling efficiency This part shows the effect of rotational speed and grains moisture content on shelling efficiency. It could be seen that the shelling efficiency decreased with increasing the moisture content and increased by increasing rotational speed, where it increased from 97.34to 99.43% at 12% moisture content, from 96.08 to 99.32±0.18% at 16% moisture content and it increased from 94.25 to 98.14 at 20% corn grains moisture content when the rotational speed increased from 40-120 rpm 28

29. The graph below shows the effect of rotational speed and moisture content on the shelling efficiency 29

30. Shelling efficiency . The statistical analysis of the percentage of shelling efficiency results as affected by rotational speed and grains moisture content showed that there were significant differences between moisture contents. The differences between the shelling efficiency due to the effect of rotational speed and moisture content were significant. Also the analysis showed that the interaction between moisture content and rotational speed was significant. The increasing speed of shelling from 80 to 120 rpm lead to a significant increase in the shelling efficiency by about 2.10%.This is due to the increase in the shelling time accompanied with an increase in the shelling time accompanied with an increase in the unshelled grains, so that the efficiency of shelling did increase 30

31. CONCLUSIONS The manual maize sheller was successful in reducing the rate at which maize grains were being damaged, in reducing the amount of unshelled grains and also increase the shelling efficiency. Since the results shows that Despite the goal, the manual maize sheller is also flexible to use and increase the scale of operation at affordable costs. 31

32. Conclusion cont … T he rotational speed of shelling effected significantly on the efficiency of shelling as well as unshelled grains, while it had less impact on the broken grains. The variation of the rotational speed of shelling and the moisture content influenced significantly on the shelling efficiency, unshelled grains, and broken grains. The combination of the rotational speed which ranges from 80rpm to 120 rpm, and the change in moisture content of 14,18 and 20 gave the best measured parameters, which can be adopted later as standards for shelling purpose. 32

33. RECOMMENDATIONS The recommendations of this study were mainly based as stated in the summary that some other factors which affect maize shellers should also be considered and studied such as the shelling unit and the slippage of the maize grains, as they have an impact on the sheller productivity. More so, if the manual maize sheller is well maintained, modified and revised may improve the shelling efficiency and also lower the rate at which the grains are damaged for a better outcome and so by doing reducing shelling time ,amount of labor and also the cost to be incurred. 33

34. REFFERENCES Akubuo , C.O. 2002. Performance evaluation of a local maize sheller . Biosystems Engineering 83 (1): 77-83. Nwakaire , J. N., B. O. Ugwuishiwu and C. J. Ohagwu (2011). Design, construction and performance evaluation of a maize thresher for rural dwellers. Nigerian Journal of Technology. 30 (2): 49-54 [ International Journal of Engineering Science and Innovative Technology (IJESIT) Volume 4, Issue 2, March 2015 Anand 2001. Testing and evaluation of maize sheller using maize with husk. Unpublished B.Tech Project Report. Dept , of Farm Power and Machinery. PAU, Ludhiana. Vejasit , A and Salokhe , V.M.2004. Studies on machine-crop parameters of an axle flow thresher for threshing soybean. Agricultural Engineering International: the GIGR Journal of Scientific Research and development Manuscript PM04004. July, 2004. 34

35. THE END 35

36. THANK YOU 36