DEVELOPMENT OF A GARLIC BULB SEPARATOR: 2. GRADING UNIT

DRESS, A. M.; IBRAHIM, M. M.

doi:10.21608/mjae.2013.102126

DEVELOPMENT OF A GARLIC BULB SEPARATOR: 2. GRADING UNIT

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

A. M. DRESS ¹
M. M. IBRAHIM ²

¹ Assoc. Prof., Ag. Eng. Dept., Fac. of Agric., AL-Azhar University- Assuit., Egypt.

² Assist. Prof., Ag. Eng. Dept., Fac. of Agric., Cairo University, Egypt.

10.21608/mjae.2013.102126

Abstract

Grading unit is the second operation in garlic bulb separator; with a separated clove grading is necessary to further processing. A grading and cleaning unit was added to garlic bulb separator. The grading unit was developed through consecutive stages of design, fabrication and evaluation. Some physical and mechanical properties (dimensions, mass, volume, static coefficient of friction and terminal velocity) of garlic bulb that are pertinent to the mechanical processing were measured and considered in design stage of grading unit.
The developed unit was evaluated at four levels of crank speed (C_S) (200, 225, 250 and 275 rpm), four levels of feeding rate (F_R) (233, 266, 326 and 353 kg h^-1) and three levels of sieve angle (S_A) (5, 10 and 20 deg.). The Evaluation was based on the following parameters: grading efficiency (GE), machine capacity (P_m), consumed energy (CE) and cost.
The results recommend operating the machine at combinations of C_S =225→250 rpm, S_A =5→20 degrees at different F_R to maximize GE value of 86.9 % - 97.8%. The grading unit capacity increased to about 2.7 times and the grading cost decreased to about 93 % comparing with manual method. The obtained results were used to introduce empirical equations to predict the values of " P_m, GE and CE " as a function of "C_S, F_R and S_A".

Keywords

Main Subjects

Agricultural Power and Machinery Engineering

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