Design, Fabrication and Testing of a Manual and Motorized Ginger Size Reduction Machine.

Abstract

This research work was carried out to design, fabricante and test the performance of a manual and motorized ginger size reduction machine in order for the ginger to be dried easily for storage. This concept also aimed at reducing the processing cost, drudgery and time involved in drying ginger. The machine was designed to have a capacity of 900kg per day. The machine consists of hopper. cutting unit. press, cutting blade, frame, an electrie motor. manually operated pulley and crank arm. The machine was designed and fabricated using locally sourced material of stainless steel for all part that made contact with the ginger. Three ginger cutting orifices size blades of 1.5 x 2.5cm, 2.0 x 2.0cm and 1.5 x 1.5em were used in the design so as to enable testing to be carried out to ascertain the orifice size that achieved efficient drying. The machine was tested for its efficiency and capacity using varying speeds and blade sizes. Results show an increase in the cutting efficiency with increase in speed and blade size as the highest cutting efficiency of 9339 was obtained at a speed of 80rpm and blade size of 2.5cm. Also machine capacity increases with increase in the speed of the machine and increase in blade size as the highest machine capacity of 28kgh was recorded at a speed of 80rpm and a blade size of 25cm. The percentage uncut increased with decrease in speed and blade size as the highest percentage uncut of 28-3% was obtained at a speed of 40rpm and a blades size of 1.5cm. Conclusively the set aim and objectives of this project work were duly achieved and the equipment can be easily dismantled for ease of transportation and maintenance and reassembled when needed.