MANUFACTURE AND PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF A COMBINATION MACHINE FOR CHOPPING AND MILLING ARUNDO DONAX (PART II)

El-Sharabasy, M. M. A.; Badr, M. M.

doi:10.21608/mjae.2014.99597

MANUFACTURE AND PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF A COMBINATION MACHINE FOR CHOPPING AND MILLING ARUNDO DONAX (PART II)

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

M. M. A. El-Sharabasy ¹
M. M. Badr ²

¹ Assist. Prof. of Agric. Eng., Fac. of Agric., Zagazig Univ., Egypt.

² Lecturer of Agric. Eng., Fac. of Agric., Zagazig Univ., Egypt.

10.21608/mjae.2014.99597

Abstract

The aim of the present work was to manufacture and evaluate the performance of a combination machine to be suitable for chopping and milling the Arundo donax stalks so as to use the final product in many industrial applications such as: making compost to improve soil properties, energy source (direct burning and biogas generation) and compressed wood. The performance of the combination machine was studied under the following parameters: drum speed, moisture content and feed rate. The performance of the manufactured machine was evaluated taking into consideration the following indicators: cut length distribution, machine productivity, fineness degrees, specific energy and operational cost. The experimental results reveal that the highest values of cut length percentage < 2 up to 4 cm, machine productivity and fine degree were (78.95%, 600 kg/h and 82.87%) respectively, while the lowest values of the specific energy and operational cost were (71.08 kW.h/Mg and 33.33 L.E/Mg), respectively under the following conditions: drum speed of about 1300 rpm, stalks moisture content of 14% with adjusting feed rate at 700 kg/h.

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