Design and Performance Assessment of A Spike toothed Drum Mechanism for Shelling of Castor

Abstract

The development and testing of the castor shelling machine were carried out. The development of the machine was embarked upon in order to reduce the drudgery associated with the processing of castor seed. The machine consists of the shelling drum, external cylindrical casing, husk blower and power unit comprising a 5Hp electric motor, pulleys and belts. The blower was incorporated to facilitate easy and proper cleaning and separation of the seeds from the chaffs. Performance tests were carried out using 90kg castor seed which was divided into three 30kg sample each at 6%, 8% and 10% moisture content respectively. The samples were shelled and winnowed in the machine. The results showed that the machine had the highest shelling efficiency, cleaning efficiency and seed recovery percentage of 81.3%, 58% and 85% respectively at 6% moisture content. The lowest shelling efficiency of 45.9%, cleaning efficiency of 24.0% and seed recovery percentage of 30.5%were recorded at 10% moisture content.