Description
ABSTRACT
This work is on a maize harvester. The main purpose of our Project is to help small scale farmers who having land area less than 5 acres by designing small scale harvester machine to harvest grains very efficiently. Our project work will focus on ease of harvesting operation to the small scale farmers for harvesting varieties of maize in less time and at low cost by considering different factors such as cost of equipment, ease of operation, time of operation and climatic conditions. This machine has cutting blades which cut crops in scissoring type of operation can cut up to two rows of maize. The power unit for this machine is Petrol engine of 14.25 HP. This power is transmitted through gear box, sprocket-chain mechanism to the cutter blades and other power requiring mechanisms for performing cutting, harvesting, and separation operation. This dehuster might be the best solution for the problems faced by small scale farmers relating with availability of labors and cost ofharvesting.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
COVER PAGE
TITLE PAGE
APPROVAL PAGE
DEDICATION
ACKNOWELDGEMENT
ABSTRACT
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE PROJECT
- PROBLEM STATEMENT
- AIM AND OBJECTIVE OF THE PROJECT
- ADVANTAGES OF THE PROJECT
- LIMITATION OF THE PROJECT
- METHODOLOGY
CHAPTER TWO
2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW
- AN OVERVIEW OF MAIZE
- CORN HARVESTER
- REVIEW OF THE STUDY
- CONVENTIONAL HARVESTINGPROCESS
CHAPTER THREE
3.0 METHODOLOGY
3.1 INTRODUCTION
3.2 THE MACHINECOMPONENTS
3.3 CALCULATION
3.4 WORKING PRINCIPLE
CHAPTER FOUR
TEST AND RESULT
- CONSTRUCTION PROCEDURE AND TESTING ANALYSIS
- ASSEMBLING OF SECTIONS
- RESULT
- PERFORMANCE TEST
CHAPTER FIVE
- CONCLUSION
- REFERENCES
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Recently farmers have seen a shortage of skilled labour available for agriculture. Because of this shortage, the farmers have transitioned to using harvesters. Maize harvesting is one of the most important filed operations of maize production. One of the mostimportant crop processing activities is threshing or shelling, which is used to extract the grainsfrom the ear heads and prepare the quality for sale. Farmers must introduce advancements intechnologies that meet their needs in order to increase their benefit from maize crop. Makingmaize crop into high-quality types not only increases farmers’ net profits, but also extends theuseful life of maize products. (Nwakaireet al., 2011). Maize cobs are manually plucked byhand, and then harvested cobs are dried in the open yard to reduce moisture content by up to15% to 21% (db). The common shelling and dehusking methods, such as rubbing crop cobsagainst each other, rubbing on bricks, stone, and wire mesh with an iron cylinder, are time-consuming and drudgery, and crop exposure to natural hazards such as rain, fire, livestock,birds, and insects over time results in losses in quantity and quality of grains. (Naveenkumar2011).Dehusking is removing the outer sheath and shelling for kernels from ear heads arealsopartofmaizeharvesting.Dehuskingistheprocessofseparatingthehuskfromtheearhead without damaging the seeds, and shelling is the process of removing the maize kernelfromthe cob. (Oriaku,et al.,2014)
A maize dehusker could be develop, consideringthe following facts. It should be portable easy to carry fromoneplacetoother,electricpoweroperated,assourceofpowercheapandpollutionfree,accordingtocropcharacteristics and system parameters (Dula, 2019). Themachinecouldhaveacapacityof500to800kgperhour,with optimal dehusking efficiency, and is bestsuitedformarginal,smalland medium farmers.
1.2 PROBLEM STATEMENT
Traditionally, dehusking process of maize is done manually by labour and it consumes time and at the same time wastes maize. The purpose of mechanized maize harvesting is to replace manual labor to dehusk maize from fields in time with minimum loss while maintaining high quality.
1.3 AIM AND OBJECTIVES OF THE PROJECT
The main aim of this project is to design and fabricate a machine that will eliminate the skilled operator involved in de-husking the maize and to completely automate the dehusking and crown removing process. The objectives are:
- To design a maizede husking machine
- To fabricate the maize dehusking machine
- To improve number of cobs produced per hour
1.4 SCOPE/LIMITATION OF THE PROJECT
The scope of this work covers fabricating a maizedehusking machine which Adehusker removes the husk from cob and this is done with the help of two rubber roller rotating in opposite directions and at different speeds,thedifferenceofsurfacespeedsoftworubberrollsdevelopashearingforceoncobsurfaceresultingintheopeningandbreakingofhusk.Similarlysurface of the rubber rolls rotating at lower speed tries to hold the cob but the faster rubber roll pushes the grain resulting in shelling of breaking of husk.
1.5 ECONOMIC IMPORTANCE OF THE PROJECT
- i) The major beneficiaries of this project are rural dweller who might engage themselves in corn processing.
- ii) Small, and medium scale agro-industrial set up who produce products like corn starch.
- iii) industries that might be using extracts from for other productions etc.
- iv) Agro – feed industries who might be using maize as additive in feed production.
1.6 CONTRIBUTION TO KNOWLEDGE
There are many existing ways of dehusking maize starting from traditional way to mechanical means. Some of these methods are time consuming, tiring, and difficult operation to perform and involves much human drudgery. Dehusking with traditional hand tools like machete or a spike depends on the skill of worker and involves training. Nowadays there is shortage of such skilled workers. The mechanized or the power operatedmachinesaredevelopedtoeliminatethedrawbacksofmanualtools.Using this method serves as a means of eliminating the above mentioned drawbacks of the existing tools and machines.
CHAPTER FIVE
5.1 CONCLUSIONS
The main objective was to make simple, compact, efficient and low cost small scale harvester for small land holders. This machine fulfilled all objective and following conclusion were drawn on based of work:
- On the basis of literature review, all specification regarding small scale harvester weremeet.
- After assembling the machine was tested on field for its efficiency and capability. The result got was as per our expectations frommachine.
- It is also concluded that machine was easy to control on thefield.
- As this harvester is made to work at any condition where mega harvester cannot be reach and it meet to work in any condition with proper transportation facility due to compact size.
