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Production Of Clean Grain From Multi Crop Thresher For Small Scale Farmers
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CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
Cowpea is a grain legumes appears to have originated from west-African, very widely in Nigeria were there are many wild weedy species in both savanna and forest zone (Steel, 1992).Cowpeas are now widely distributed throughout the tropics and sub-tropics. They are grown in India, south eastern Asia, and Australia the Caribbean, southern united state and throughout the low land tropical Africa. Nigeria alone produces 61% (760000 tones) of the world total production (Irtwange 2009). Despite this figures, Nigeria continues to suffer from hunger and malnutrition. This is because the rate that of population growth is exceeded the rate of food production with a consequent decline in per capital food intake (Irtwange 2009). This call for the need to step up food production.
Grain, according to Okaka (2004) is fruit of cultivated grasses belonging to the family of monocotyledonous, gramineace. The principle cereal grain of the world includes wheat, beans, sorghum, rice and maize. Agriculture commodities are consumed as food and grains contributed to the bulk of the country’s calories and protein. The world grain is broadly used to indicate cereals and pulses. Grain however can be grown extensively for food and the fast growing agricultural based industries. They are used in either fresh form or dried form. Dried grains are preferred for industrial uses. The major processing methods used in preparing grain are dry milling wet milling and malting (Olatunji,2000).
Maize (zeamays) is cereal crops that are grown widely throughout the world in a range of agro ecological environments more maize is produced annually than any other grains. About 50 species exist and consist of different colors, texture and grain shapes and seize, white yellow and red are most common types. The white and yellow varieties are preferred by most people depending on the region maize was introduced into Africa the 1500s and since become one of African dominant food crop. The grains are rich in vitamin A, C, and E carbohydrates and essential minerals and contain 99% protein. They are also rich in dietary fiber and calories which are good source of energy (Adeokoma2001).
The major steps involves in the processing of maizeare harvesting, drying, de-husking, shelling, storage and milling. For rural framers to maximize profit from the maize, appropriate technology that suites thresher needmust be used. The processing of the agricultural product like maize into quality form not only prolong thesheff life of these product but also increase the net profit the farmer make from mechanization technology of such product.(okaka 2004). Guinea corn (sorghum) is a cereal grain that originated in Africa and is eaten throughout the world. It is especially valuable in arid terrain because of its resistance to drought, guinea corn is a nutrient rich grain that is often grand into flour to make bread, porridge and pancake including it diet offers a number of nutritional and the rapeutic benefit guinea corn contain 163calories protein, carbohydrate, fat content minerals, the one nutritional highlight of guinea corn is its mineral content. Adequate intake of iron support the transportation of oxygen in the body system and helps to promote cell growth and development of potassium helps to maintain fluid balance, and high intake in food blood pressure according to American heart association (Purseglove, 2007).
1.2 Problem Statement
Traditional threshing method do not support large- scale threshing of grains especially for commercial purposes. Locally in Nigeria the region that is the highest producer of grain like maize is the northern part of the country it was observed that the most threshing of grainwasdone by hand shelling. Hand threshing take a lot of time, even with some hand operated simple tools, it was also observed in the study area, most mechanical threshers were designed for multi grain threshing or shelling, which causes great damage to the grain seed besides breaking the maize cob to pieces the available Shellerwere locally equipped with rotating threshing drum with beater or teeth which cause damages to the seed. Besides, the costs of purchasing such thresher were high for poor rural farmer and therefore necessitated the design of low cost system that will be affordable and also increases threshing efficiency but reduce damage done to the seed (Ogunwede,2003).
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ABSRACT - [ Total Page(s): 1 ]ABSTRACTThe traditional methods of threshing of crops are inefficient, laborious, and time consuming and low out put. The existing fabricated machine was observed during preliminary testing to have low performance. In the light of the above mentioned problems, there is need to modify and testing multi-crop thresher to threshed grain at optimum speed. The threshing machine consist of the following component: Hopper, frame, beater, sieve, pulley, grain outlet and chaff outlet. The factors consider ... Continue reading---
TABLE OF CONTENTS - [ Total Page(s): 1 ]TABLE OF CONTENTS Title page Certification Dedication Acknowledgement Abstract Table of contents List of figures List of plates List of tables’ CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background of the study 1.2 Problem statement 1.3 Aims and objectives 1.4 Justification 1.5 Scope of the project CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Threshing Process ... Continue reading---
CHAPTER TWO - [ Total Page(s): 4 ]CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW2.1 ThreshingProcessThreshing is defined by Andrew(2005) as the process of loosening the edible part of cereals grain (or other crop) from the scaly, inedible chaff that surround it. It is a step in grain preparation after harvesting and before winnowing, which separate the loosening chaff from grains. Threshing may be done by beating the grain using a flail on a threshing floor. Another traditional method of threshing is to make donkey or oxen walk in circle ... Continue reading---
CHAPTER THREE - [ Total Page(s): 7 ]Torgue = F × rWhere, F = Centrifugal force =2666N R = radius of machine pulley 0.155 Torgue = F × r = 2666 × 0.155 = 413NmPower = Where,N = speed of the electric motor = 1430rpm = 3.142T = 413NmP = 2 × 3.142 × P = 61854.5KW3.4.3 Design for Shaft of the machine A shaft is a rotation machine element which is used to transmit power from one place to another. The power is delivered to the shaft by force and the resultant torgue ( ... Continue reading---
CHAPTER FOUR - [ Total Page(s): 1 ]CHAPTER FOURRESULT AND DISCUSSION4.1 ResultThe experimental result obtained from the experiment is as shown in table 5.1 and 5.2 the raw data is as shown in appendix.4.2 DiscussionsA multi-crop threshing machine was modified and evaluated for performance. The threshing efficiency, unthreshed efficiency, breakage efficiency and throughput capacity were 90.1%, 9.5%, 20.1%, 143.4kg|hr for feed rate of 2kg and 90.9%, 9.1%, 14.11% and 251kg|hr for feed rate of 3kg respectively at a consta ... Continue reading---
CHAPTER FIVE - [ Total Page(s): 1 ]CHAPTER FIVECONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION5.1 Conclusion The following conclusion was drawn from the performance carried out on the multi-crop thresher.I. The speed of the blower was obtained which reduces the blown out of grains from the outletII. The feed rate of 3kg favors the constant speed of 300rpmIII. The higher the feed rates at the threshing drum the higher the throughput capacity.5.2 RecommendationBased on the result and conclusion, the foll ... Continue reading---
REFRENCES - [ Total Page(s): 1 ]REFERENCESAbdulkadir.B.H. and Olufemi A.O (2009).The design and construction of threshing machine.Assumption university journal of technology 12(3) pp199-206.Adaokoma (2001) Design and fabrication of multi-purpose grain dehauler.Eng Thesis, Department of mechanical engineering federal university technology (FUT) minna Nigeria.Adewumi (2006).Design, fabrication and preliminary testing of a thresher cleaner for grain legume, food science technology.Bates.W.N. (1999).Mechanization of tropical crops ... Continue reading---
