Design, development and performance evaluation of a mobile solar powered maize dehusker cum sheller

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Date
2019
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Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology, Bhubaneswar
Abstract
Maize (Zea mays) is grown throughout the year in India. Maize is one of the most widely cultivated crop grows in both tropical and warm temperate latitudes. Maize in India ranks third in total production and productivity and fifth in total area. Since last one decade, maize cultivation area is continuously increasing to meet the raising demand in the world. Solar power is ideally used in India due to location factor and also gives the benefit to the environment as renewable energy. Solar power operated mobile maize dehusker cum sheller gives a significance in many rural locations of most developing countries where grid connected electricity is either unavailable or unreliable so using energy from source is beneficial. It also gives a significance in a saving of cost on fuel, electrical energy and also it is a more useful in areas where availability electricity is a major problem. The present research was undertaken with the objectives of design & development of mobile maize dehusker cum sheller & study of performance evaluation of develop machine with cost estimation. Also a present study has been conducted to investigate the physical properties of variety (OMH 14-27) grown in Odisha for the designing of various components of machine. The basic considerations for development of a mobile maize dehusker cum sheller were taken into account and the conceptual model of the mobile maize dehusker cum sheller was developed using CATIA V5 software. The principle of dehusking and shelling actions were shearing & tearing by rubber type dehusking elements and friction by taper section with cuts on both side of section given for shelling purpose in a top cover of machine. In present study, the small sized DC motor (0.5 hp) operated mobile maize dehusker cum sheller was developed for selected operational parameters, viz. moisture content (11.23, 13.07, 15.36 %), feed rate (20, 40, 60 kg/h) and rotational speed (415,460,510 rpm). The machine performance parameters resulted that, the maximum dehusking (98.79 %) and shelling (96.84 %) was found to be at 20 kg/h feed rate, 510 rpm and 11.23 % moisture content. The total losses of grains were found to be maximum (7.08 %) while it was minimum (4.31%) on 11.23 % of moisture content, 510 rpm of rotational speed & 40 kg/h of feed rate. The maximum output capacity (36.14 kg/h) was obtained for 60 kg/h feed rate. The mobile unit (OMSPAM) performance revels that generally OMSPAM takes 7 to 8 hours for full charging of battery & the full charge battery holds for 5-6 hours in working condition. The vehicle travels at a speed of 35km/h (25 km/h fully laden) & range of distance travelled is 120-130 km with solar panel (on sunny day). The total production cost of the mobile maize dehusker cum sheller was found to be Rs. 1, 78,000 and the operating cost per hour as 169.22 Rs/h. Renewable energy, Mobile unit, Maize, Dehusking, Shelling
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