Loading...
Thesis
Browse
28 results
Search Results
ThesisItem Open Access DESIGN, DEVELOPMENT AND PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF BENCH GRAFTING TOOL(COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURAL ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY, DAPOLI, DR. BALASAHEB SAWANT KONKAN KRISHI VIDYAPEETH, DAPOLI, RATNAGIRI, 2023-06-01) Mr. Biradar Shridhar Somling; Dr. K. G. Dhande; Dr. S. V. Pathak; Dr. A. G. MohodThe current shortage of farm labour and unavailability of skilled grafter during grafting season has made more apparent, the need of a machine for bench grafting to eliminates the need of grafting skill improve efficiency for small scale nursery. The existing manual (hand) grafting technique was studied. The success of grafting for manual method by skilled grafter was found 60 to 80 % and time required per graft was 57.8 sec. The moisture content of scion (Vengurla - 4) of diameter 3 -12 mm was found 58.13 % to 82.58 %. The moisture content of rootstock of diameter 3 – 10 mm was found 67.08 to 90.09 %. The hardness of scion was found 16.62 to 51.83 N/mm2. The hardness of rootstock was found 2.01 to 33.24 N/mm2. The maximum cutting strength of scion and rootstock was found 7.06 N/mm2. The bench grafting tool for softwood grafting of cashew was developed consists of cutting mechanism and wrapping mechanism. The maximum cutting success rate of scion and rootstock cutting was found to be 85 % with scion cutting capacity 818 grafts/hr and 80 % respectively, and maximum 0.844 kWh energy consumption. The maximum wrapping success rate was found to be 95 % with wrapping capacity of 145 wraps/hr at operating rotational speed 50 rpm. The success of grafting using developed bench grafting tool was found to be 60 – 80 % with grafting capacity 83 - 110 grafts/hr. a) Title of thesis : DESIGN, DEVELOPMENT AND PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF BENCH GRAFTING TOOL b) Full name of student : Mr. Biradar Shridhar Somling c) Name and address of Major Advisor : Dr. K. G. Dhande Professor (CAS), Department of FMPE CAET, Dr. BSKKV, Dapoli d) Degree to be awarded : M. Tech (Farm Machinery and Power Engineering) e) Year of award of degree : 2022 f) Major subject : Farm Machinery and Power Engineering g) Total number of pages in thesis : 102 h) Number of words in abstract : 374 i) Signature of student : j) Signature, Name and address of forwarding authority :ThesisItem Open Access DESIGN, DEVELOPMENT AND PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF TRIPHAL PEELING UNIT(COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURAL ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY, DAPOLI, DR. BALASAHEB SAWANT KONKAN KRISHI VIDYAPEETH, DAPOLI, RATNAGIRI, 2023-08-11) Mr. Bagde Chetan Shivprasad; Dr. S. V. Pathak; Dr. P. U. ShahareTriphal (Xanthoxylum rhesta) is the spice only produced in Konkan. No any processing machiney were developed for the triphal. Engineering properties of triphal were measured for development of triphal peeling unit. Engineering properties such as moisture content, dimension, size, bulk density, true density, porocity, angle of repose, coefficient of friction, seed detachment force etc were determined and utilized in design and development of the machine. Internal cylinder, grate, main frame, sieve, hopper were the parts of machine. Based on output the machine was tested for field performance and the results were obtained as peeling efficiency, triphal damage, unpeeled triphal and capacity of machine were observed as 98 per cent, 3.1 per cent, 3.2 per cent and 8 kg/h, respectively, which was obtained within 5 to 10 per cent variation over the field.ThesisItem Open Access DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF MECHANICAL HARVESTER FOR ARECANUT(COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURAL ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY DR. BALASAHEB SAWANT KONKAN KRISHI VIDYAPEETH,DAPOLI, 2023-03-03) Er. PAWAR POOJA RAJENDRA; Dr.S.V.Pathak; Dr.P. U. Shahare, Dr.K.G. Dhande; Dr.A.G.Mohod, R.G.KhandearABSTRACT DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF MECHANICAL HARVESTER FOR ARECA NUT Er. Pawar Pooja Rajendra Reg. No - ENDPD-2017/027 M. Tech (Agricultural Engineering) DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (AGRICULTURAL ENGINEERING) in FARM MACHINERY AND POWER College of Agricultural Engineering and Technology, Dr. Balasaheb Sawant Konkan Krishi Vidyapeeth, Dapoli, Dist. – Ratnagiri, Maharashtra August 2022 Research Guide : Dr. S. V. Pathak Department : Farm Machinery and Power - India is the largest producer and consumer of areca nut in the world. Conventionally, climbing and harvesting operations are carried out manually. The areca nut tree climbing is done by manual methods i.e. using skilled labours only while; harvesting is done by sharp edge tool like sickle. Labour has to climb areca nut tree at certain height and using traditional tool (sickle) for harvesting of areca nut. It includes hard physical work hence; it required specialized skill labours to perform climbing and harvesting operation on areca nut tree. Such skilled labours are not only easily available but also costlier than other labours. Hence, it increases the cost of areca nut farming. If the drudgeries involved in climbing operation are eliminated through advanced mechanical tool or machine, then it will include the profit to areca nut growers. Considering the urgent need of this machine, the efforts are made to develop an engine operated mechanical harvester, which perform climbing and harvesting operation and operated from ground level by single person. Engineering properties of areca nut tree and fruit play important role in designing mechanical harvester for areca nut. Therefore, engineering properties of areca nut fruit and tree related to harvesting and climbing were studied. Based on these properties of areca nut, the design of machine was carried out. The mechanical harvester was constructed which worked on principle of rolling self-locking mechanism which was used for vertical climbing. The main objective of rolling self-locking mechanism is the normal force (FN) between machine and tree is generated by hydraulic springs, this force is mainly generated out of the gravity force that transmit this force to the desired position and machine can adapt to varying tree diameters. The machine is stable on tree regardless of its weight as long as the centre of the gravity of the machine is far enough from the tree on the driving wheel side. In other words, if the payload is very high, still the machine is naturally stable. The major components of developed mechanical harvester for areca nut are frame assembly, pneumatic wheels, hydraulic spring loaded supporting frame and cutting blade assembly. The mechanical harvester was operated by 2.1 kW petrol engine, 6500 revolutions and 1:32 gearbox which generated 200 revolutions at final output. Power transmission was carried out with chain and sprocket assembly. The operational parameters of harvester were centre to centre distances between driving and driven wheels, tyre pressure of wheels, blade angle with respect to horizontal and type of blade and these parameters were optimized using RSM on performance parameters such as coverage (trees/h), fuel consumption (lit/h),total time of operation (mins) and no. of strokes (nos.). The optimum values for operational parameters were, centre to centre distances were 405 mm, tyre pressure 1.40 kg/cm2 and blade angle 95 degree and type of blade was rectangular. These optimum values were validated using paired t-test. The final performance parameters were; coverage 56 bunches/h (excluding shifting and miscellaneous time), fuel consumption 1.23 lit/h, total time of operation 1.23 min (per tree), no. of strokes 3.The operating cost of mechanical harvester for areca nut was found to be Rs. 36270/-. Considering easy handling, ease of operation and good performance the developed mechanical harvester for areca nut can be a solution for mechanized areca nut climbing and harvesting in the Konkan region.ThesisItem Open Access DEVELOPMENT AND PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF POWER TILLER OPERATED ROOT CROP DIGGER FOR KONKAN REGION(COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURAL ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY DR. BALASAHEB SAWANT KONKAN KRISHI VIDYAPEETH,DAPOLI, 2023-02-23) Warak Abhijeet Kondu; Dr.A. A. Deogirikar; Dr.P. U. Shahare, Dr.V. V. AwareABSTRACT DEVELOPMENT AND PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF POWER TILLER OPERATED ROOT CROP DIGGER FOR KONKAN REGION By Warak Abhijeet Kondu College of Agricultural Engineering and Technology, Dr. Balasaheb Sawant Konkan Krishi Vidyapeeth, Dapoli-415 712, Dist. Ratnagiri, (Maharashtra) July 2022 Research Guide: Er. A. A. Deogirikar Department: Farm Machinery and Power Turmeric (Curcuma longa L.) (Zingiberaceae) is utilised in religious rites as well as a spice, colour, medicine, and cosmetic. China, Myanmar, Nigeria, and Bangladesh are among the countries that grow it. Andhra Pradesh alone accounting for 38 % of the area and 58.5 % of the production. Manual harvesting is extremely labour intensive, difficult, and time consuming. It costs over 30 % to 40 % of the overall cost of crop cultivation. It is also a challenging task for farmer to obtain the necessary labour force throughout harvesting season. Mechanical tuber harvesting reduces costs and labour requirements while also improving soil fertility. Higher labour requirements for planting, inter-culture, and harvesting have been one of the key barriers in growing the area under these crops. The crop is grown on a small scale and is entirely reliant on human labour. The adoption of these crops on a broad scale will aid in diversification, which can only be accomplished through mechanization. Turmeric rhizomes are sown manually with plant to plant and row to row spacing as 30 cm. The soil type in Konkan region is sandy loam with moisture content of the soil varied between 13 to 18 % (d.b.) at the time of turmeric harvesting. The bulk density of soil was in the range of 1.27 to 1.34 g/cm 3 . Based on agronomic requirement, design consideration and field survey, the power tiller operated root crop digger was developed. The main components of digger are digging blade, soil separating unit and main frame or chassis. The digger was designed to dig turmeric tubers and separate soil from dug tubers. The digging unit i.e. blade and vibrating conveyor or soil separator are two major working components of xviiiturmeric digger. The blade was designed for its thickness based on load acting on it. Thickness of the blade was 9 mm and as per the requirement of digging operation width and length of 455 mm and 255 mm was selected. Power required for scoring blade through soil, for pulling implement, and load of soil over implement was calculated. Observations were recorded for each test run and their three replications. The experiments on test set-up were planned by varying rake angle (15°, 20° and 25°), conveyor angle (5°, 10° and 15°) and speed of operation ( 1.5, 2.0 and 2.5 km/h). Testing of developed root crop digger was done according to the BIS code and was conducted on the turmeric field of ASTARC Pvt. Ltd., Khodade Village, Tal Kudal, Dist Sindhudurg. The variety of the crop under study was Selam. Plane and serrated blades did not perform as desired while peg tooth blade performed well in terms of depth. Therefore, peg tooth blade was tested further. The operating parameters of the peg tooth type blade were optimized using ‘Design Expert 13’. The RSM with Box–Behnken Design (BBD) was used to analyze data obtained during field experiments. The results obtained were analyzed by ANOVA to verify the significance of effect of independent parameters on response parameters. The power required decreased with decrease in rake angle and forward speed and conveyor angle attaining minimum (1.29 kW) at 1.5 km/h of forward speed with 5 conveyor angle. The minimum tuber damage i.e. 1.3 was found at 1.5 km/h forward speed with rake angle 25. The digging efficiency was observed to decrease earlier with respect to speed and later it was increased with speed neglecting the effect of conveyor angle. Field efficiency increased with decrease in rake angle and decrease in forward speed and conveyor angle attaining maximum of 87.96 % at 1.5 km/h forward speed with 5 conveyor angle. It attained maximum field efficiency of 90.86 % at 15 rake angle with 5 conveyor angle. The results of performance of root crop digger showed the power requirement 1.34 kW, damaged tuber 1.4, digging efficiency 91.7 %, fuel consumption 1.84 l/h and field efficiency 85.71 % at optimum operating conditions of the digger. The total development cost for digger was ₹ 51632/- and operating cost was found to be ₹ 5033.65/ha. While cost of manually digging was observed to ₹ 18750/ha. Hence, net saving in turmeric harvesting with digger was ₹ 13716/ha (73 %). The developed implement found satisfactory for simultaneous digging and rhizome separation operation in Konkan region for turmeric crop. Keywords: Turmeric, digger, fuel consumption, field efficiency, operating cost. xixThesisItem Open Access DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF MANUAL NUTMEG (Myristica fragrans Houtt.) HARVESTING SYSTEM(COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURAL ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY, DR. BALASAHEB SAWANT KONKAN KRISHI VIDYAPEETH,DAPOLI, 2018-08-07) Yamagar Somnath Gangaram; Dr. K. G. Dhande; Dr, Dr.S. V. PathakV.V. Aware; Dr.P.G.KhandekarΔ Delta ABSTRACT DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF MANUAL NUTMEG (Myristica fragrans Houtt.)HARVESTING SYSTEM By Mr. Yamagar Somnath Gangaram College of Agricultural Engineering and Technology, 83Dr. BalasahebS awant Konkan Krishi Vidyapeeth, Dapoli-415 712, Dist. Ratnagiri, (Maharashtra) 2018 Research Guide: Dr. K. G. Dhande Department: Farm Machinery and Power Nutmeg (Myristica fragrans Houtt.) is an important tree spice which produces two different spices namely nutmeg and mace. The nutmeg fruits are harvested on time and at the proper stage of maturity in order to maintain their nutrients level as well as attaining desirable quality. The Konkan region is well regarded as fruit belt of Maharashtra. Presently, the method adopted for harvesting nutmeg in Konkan region is by manual means i.e. by hand picking, by shaking the tree branches or by using bamboo stick having a curved hook. It was therefore, necessary to develop harvesting system with simple design, easy for operation, low cost but with higher working efficiency. In view of this thesis, the present investigation entitled, “Design and Development of Manual Nutmeg (Myristica fragrans Houtt.) Harvesting System” was carried out at Department of Farm Machinery and Power, College of Agricultural Engineering and Technology, DBSKKV, Dapoli. To overcome the problem and limitations of the traditional harvesting methods, a manually operated Nutmeg harvesting system was designed, developed and fabricated based on requirement and anthropometric parameters of workers. The developed nutmeg harvesting system consists of fruit harvester, telescopic pole, harvesting platform and fruit collecting basket. The performance of developed Nutmeg harvesting system was evaluated in field and it‟s harvesting capacity and damage fruit per cent was found to be 8.15 kg/h and 1.33 % respectively and only one person was required for harvesting operation. The cost of harvesting nutmeg with newly developed manual Nutmeg harvesting system, hook method and beating of fruits by bamboo stick was found to be Rs/kg 5.93, 17.16 and 43.10 respectively. The newly developed Nutmeg harvesting system proved to be superior, efficient and economical over traditional harvesting method.ThesisItem Open Access DEVELOPMENT AND PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF MEDIUM CAPACITY ARECANUT HUSK FIBRE EXTRACTION MACHINE(COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURAL ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY, DR. BALASAHEB SAWANT KONKAN KRISHI VIDYAPEETH,DAPOLI, 2018-08) URADE SUYOG PARASMANI; Dr.P.U. Shahare; Dr, Dr.S. V. PathakV.V. Aware; Dr.Y. P. KhandetodABSTRACT DEVELOPMENT AND PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF MEDIUM CAPACITY ARECANUT HUSK FIBRE EXTRACTION MACHINE By Suyog Parasmani Urade College of Agricultural Engineering and Technology, Dr. Balasaheb Sawant Konkan Krishi Vidyapeeth, Dapoli-415 712, Dist. Ratnagiri, (Maharashtra) 2018 Research Guide: Dr. P. U. Shahare Department: Farm Machinery and Power Arecanut is the fruit of Areca palm tree (Areca catechu L), also called Betel nut, a species of palm, which is native of Malaysia and widely grown across Asia, Taiwan, and India. Arecanut husk is the outer cover of arecanut which consists of fibre. The manual fibre extraction has several problems such as low production rate, time consuming activity, low quality fibre and requires more workers for operation. Despite many reported usages of husk fibre, the precious biomass was underutilized due to non-availability of fibre extraction machine. This project was aimed to overcome these problems with use of chemical pre-treatment on husk which automated the fibre extraction process. Hence a medium capacity arecanut husk fibre extraction machine was developed and its performance was evaluated to increase productivity and quality of fibre. Engineering property of arecanut husk and fibre were determined for cv. Shreevardhini. Based on the requirement, the medium capacity arecanut husk fibre extraction machine was design and developed. The components of the developed machine were beater cylinder, concave, main frame, feed hopper, duct, electric motor and safety cover with guard. An A.C electric motor of 3.5 hp rated power was selected as the power source for operating the machine. The average values of engineering properties of arecanut husk viz. length, width, thickness, moisture content, and fibre content determined were 55.52 mm, 47.04 mm, 3.01 mm, 12.10 per cent (wb), and 80.20 per cent respectively. The engineering properties i.e. outer fibre length, inner fibre length, diameter and tensile strength measured of arecanut husk fibre were 43.08 mm, 58.55 mm, 0.46 mm and 23.92 N respectively. The highest fibre recovery of 78.83 per cent using pressing and 35soaking in water for 24 hours husk treatment at moisture content of husk 66 per cent and at cylinder peripheral speed of 16 m/s. The maximum tensile strength of fibre (38.81 N) was obtained in pressing and soaking in Sodium Hydroxide (NaOH) husk treatment at 66 per cent moisture content of husk and at peripheral speed of 16 m/s. Lowest energy consumption of 1.35 kWh was observed with the pressing and soaking in Sodium Hydroxide (NaOH) husk treatment rotating at peripheral speed of 12 m/s with moisture content of husk 66 per cent. The output capacity of developed arecanut husk fibre extraction machine was determined using best operating parameter viz. alkali treatment of husk, husk moisture content of 66 per cent and 16 m/s cylinder peripheral speed, and was found to be 110.58 kg/h. 36ThesisItem Open Access DEVELOPMENT OF MANUALLY OPERATED MULCH LAYING MACHINE WITH PUNCHING ARRANGEMENT(COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURAL ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY, DR. BALASAHEB SAWANT KONKAN KRISHI VIDYAPEETH,DAPOLI, 2018-08-08) Rangbhal Ajinkya Vijay; Dr.S. V. Pathak; Dr.P.U. Shahare, Dr.K.G. Dhande; V. A. RajemahadikABSTRACT DEVELOPMENT OF MANUALLY OPERATED MULCH LAYING MACHINE WITH PUNCHING ARRANGEMENT by Rangbhal Ajinkya Vijay College of Agricultural Engineering and Technology, Dr. Balasaheb Sawant Konkan Krishi Vidyapeeth, Dapoli-415 712, Dist. Ratnagiri, (Maharashtra) 2018 Research Guide: Dr. S. V. Pathak Department: Farm Machinery and Power Mulching is the process of covering soil around the plant with plastic paper results an advantageous as moisture retention, weed reduction, increase in soil temperature less crop contamination, less soil compaction, improved germination rates and completely impermeable to water. The mulching has been considered as the better water conservation techniques to grow crops in water scarcity areas. Different types of mulches are used which organic and inorganic material. Plastic mulches are available in different thicknesses, sizes and colour as per requirement. Black plastic paper mulch is one of the better option for mulching practices. The manually operated mulch laying machine with punching arrangement was developed which was combines all the operations like bed forming, laying of plastic mulch, pressing mulch paper on prepared bed, covering the edges of mulch paper and make punching holes were done simultaneously in single pass. It was performed the bed formation, mulch paper laying, punching the holes in the paper as per desired spacing and can cover the side of the paper by soil in a single pass. It consists of two concave discs, two press wheels and punching wheel for making holes on planting crops. Mulch roll holders were mounted on main frame assembly with adjustment for height and width. The performance of the developed machine was evaluated at three mulch paper thicknesses (15, 20 and 25 micron), three disc angles (35, 40 and 45 degree), three punch spacing (25, 50 and 100 cm) and three forward speeds (1.3, 1.5 and 1.7 km/h) to study their effect on effective field capacity, field efficiency and punching xixefficiency. The effective field capacity was observed in the range of 0.108 to 0.189 ha/h with the mean effective field capacity of 0.148 ha/h. The field efficiency of the manually operated mulch laying machine was recorded in the range of 71.98 per cent to 89.55 per cent when operated with mulches of different thickness. The mean field efficiency was observed as 79.40 per cent. The punching efficiency of the manually operated mulch laying machine was recorded in the range of 75.0 to 93.16 per cent when operated with different operating speed. The mean punching efficiency was observed as 82.46 per cent. The optimize values were found for selected independent parameters as 15 micron mulch paper thickness with 40 degree disc angle for effective coverage of soil over the laid plastic mulch sheet. The speed of operation has been optimized at 1.5 km/h where the machine performs better on all the selected dependent parameters, and 500 mm punch spacing was optimized to achieve maximum punching efficiency. Keywords: Mulch paper, press wheels, bund former, punching wheels, soil covering discs.ThesisItem Open Access DEVELOPMENT AND PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF POWER OPERATED PADDY WEEDER(COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURAL ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY, DR. BALASAHEB SAWANT KONKAN KRISHI VIDYAPEETH,DAPOLI, 2018-02-12) JADHAV DNYANESHWAR GANPAT; Dr.P.U. Shahare; Dr, N. A. ShirsatV.V. Aware; Dr.S. K. JainABSTRACT DEVELOPMENT AND PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF POWER OPERATED PADDY WEEDER By Dnyaneshwar Ganpat Jadhav College of Agricultural Engineering and Technology, Dr. Balasaheb Sawant Konkan Krishi Vidyapeeth, Dapoli-415 712, Dist. Ratnagiri, (Maharashtra) 2017. Research Guide: Dr. P. U. Shahare Department: Farm Machinery and Power India has largest area under rice (43.90 million ha) with the production of about 106.5 million tones, it ranks second only to china with the productivity of about 2180 kg/ha during the year 2014-2015. Maharashtra has 1.50 million ha land under rice cultivation with production of about 32.95 million tones and productivity 1890 kg/ha during the year 2014-2015 (Anonymous, 2015). The major rice growing district in Maharashtra is Thane, Raigad, Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg along with west coast and Bhandara and Chandrapur in the eastern part of the state. Rice is a staple food of Konkan region of Maharashtra. It is grown on 0.38 million ha with the production of 1.08 million tones and productivity is 2500 kg/ha. Weeds are the major problem in rice crop. Weeding operation in rice field is very tedious and drudgeries and time consuming operation as it done manually. Hence to reduce the drudgery and speed up the weeding operation, the study was undertaken to develop power weeder for paddy. The developed power weeder was designed. It was consisted of engine, gear box, propeller shaft, rotor with blade and main frame and float. The reduction gear box (ratio- 32.5:1) was used to reduce the speed to 200 rpm and it was fitted on main frame. The same speed was given to rotor of the machine. The two types of rotors were developed viz. L shape and hexagonal serrated blade. The bottom of the weeder was provided with the float. Total working width of the weeder was 300 mm having 33rotor shaft of length of 500 mm. Total 4 blades were provided with rotor having L shape blade. Total 6 serrated blades were provided for the hexagonal rotor. To avoid throwing of mud and stones towards operator a mud flap is provided covering the upper and rear side of the blades of the rotary cutting units. The highest weeding efficiency was observed as 79.85% at 30 DAS using L shape blade and 87.37 % at 40 DAS using of serrated blade. It indicated that the serrated blade has resulted into 9.41% higher weeding efficiency than L shape blade. The L shape blade resulted into minimum plant damage of 0.97 per cent at 20 DAS whereas serrated shape blade has given minimum plant damage as 0.98 per cent at 20 DAS. It indicated that the L shape blade has resulted into 1.02 % minimum plant damage than serrated blade. The lowest fuel consumption of power weeder was found with of L shape blade as 0.576 l/h at 40 DAS while the maximum fuel consumption was found on using of serrated blade as 0.68 l/h at 20 DAS. The maximum field capacity was found with L shape blade (0.0266 ha/h) than serrated blade (0.0204 ha/h) at 40DAS which is 30.39% higher. 34ThesisItem Open Access DEVELOPMENT AND PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF TWO ROW POWER OPERATED PADDY TRANSPLANTER FOR ROOT WASHED SEEDLINGS(COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURAL ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY, DR. BALASAHEB SAWANT KONKAN KRISHI VIDYAPEETH,DAPOLI, 2018-11-14) More Raviraj Yuvraj; Dr.V.V. Aware; Dr.K.G. Dhande, Smt. S. V. Aware; Dr.P. U. ShahareABSTRACT DEVELOPMENT AND PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF TWO ROW POWER OPERATED PADDY TRANSPLANTER FOR ROOT WASHED SEEDLINGS by More Raviraj Yuvraj College of Agricultural Engineering and Technology, Dr. Balasaheb Sawant Konkan Krishi Vidyapeeth, Dapoli-415 712, Dist. Ratnagiri (Maharashtra) 2018 Research Guide: Dr. V.V. Aware Department: Farm Machinery and Power Rice (Oryza sativa ) is the major staple food for more than 70 per cent of the Indian population with its cultivation mostly concentrated in the river valleys, deltas of rivers and coastal plains. In Maharashtra, rice is grown on an area of 14.99 lakh hectares with Konkan region occupying 28 per cent of the total rice producing area of the state. The transplanting method of growing rice uses root washed seedlings grown in nursery and then uprooting it for transplanting either manually or mechanically in main field. Konkan region has small land holdings and hilly terrains which restricts the farmers to follow the conventional practices of growing rice which was time- consuming, causing musculoskeletal problems and unavailability of labours at peak period. Thus, to reduce work stress and to improve the work quality, a manually operated two row paddy transplanter was developed and evaluated for its field and ergonomic performance. It was found that physiological cost for paddy transplanting with this transplanter was higher. Hence, it was decided to incorporate some modifications in mechanisms and to make the transplanting operation power operated. As mentioned above, the tedious operation of hand cranking was eliminated in the developed transplanter by using power of a 2 stroke, air cooled, petrol engine (1.75 hp @ 6500 rpm). Further, this power was reduced by a speed reduction unit in ratio of 32.5:1 and transferred through chain and sprocket drive to the machine shafts. The handle of the developed machine was designed ergonomically. The throttling lever was fit with handle to control the engine speed. Several other refinements like 70re-designing the picking cam as well as the nursery holding and releasing cam, using springs of proper tension and replacing the G.I sheet float with wooden float were done for the effective working of the developed power operated transplanter. The field test of existing and modified transplanter was conducted in kharif season of 2017-18 in Kumbhave village of Dapoli tehsil. The age of seedlings used was 35 (DAS). Manual and power operated paddy transplanter produced field capacities of 0.026 ha/h and 0.032 ha/h, respectively with field efficiencies of 40.62 and 49.27 per cent, respectively. Hence field capacity and field efficiency were increased by 23 % and 21.2 % respectively. The ergonomic evaluation of both the transplanter was done by selecting six male subjects. The working OCR of the subjects while operating the manual paddy transplanter was 1.15 (±0.17) l/min while that with the power operated transplanter was 0.86 (±0.13) l/min, showing decrease of 18.86 % with the developed machine. Also, the working heart rate (WHR) of subjects with manual paddy transplanter and power operated transplanter were 115.7 (±3.19) bpm and 106.4 (±3.14) bpm, respectively, depicting a reduction of 6.69 %. The work pulse (ΔHR) was 36.9 (±8.97) bpm, while operating the manual paddy transplanter which insisted rest pause to the subjects. For power operated paddy transplanter, rest pause was not required as ΔHR 25.7 (±5.41) bpm was less than the LCP limit (40 bpm). The energy expenditure rate with manual and power operated paddy transplanter were 23.95 (±3.60) kJ/min and 17.99 (±2.56) kJ/min respectively, thus categorizing the operation as “heavy” and “moderately heavy”, respectively. The average ODR with manual and power operated transplanter were 7 and 4, respectively, thus categorizing the work as “more than discomfort” and “moderate discomfort”, respectively. The average BPDS were 16.5 and 10, respectively, for manual and power operated paddy transplanter respectively. The average pulling force with manual and power operated paddy transplanter was 9.57 kg and 8.06 kg, respectively. The fuel consumed by power operated paddy transplanter was 0.417 l/h. The total cost of power operated paddy transplanter was Rs. 27,400/- with operating cost for manual and developed operated paddy transplanter as Rs. 2368/ha and Rs. 4532/ha, respectively. Keywords: paddy transplanter, musculoskeletal, chain and sprocket, throttling lever, working heart rate, moderately heavy, operating cost 71
