Studies on axial flow paddy thresher equipped with modified mechanical feeding systems
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Date
2016
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Publisher
Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana
Abstract
Rice (Oryza sativa) is one of the oldest known crops to have been cultivated by human. India
is one of the main rice producing and consuming countries of the world. The total production
of rice in India during 2013-14 was 106.64 million tonnes of which the contribution from
Punjab was 11.26 million tonnes (Anon 2014a). Low capacity and higher grain losses in
conventional threshers led to the development of axial flow threshing mechanism (Khan
1986). Axial flow threshers developed by IRRI in 1970s have been widely tested, evaluated
and modified by the state agricultural universities and local manufacturers in India and other
Asian countries. The losses in existing threshers were up to 4.49% (Anon 2011) whereas
acceptable loss level for threshing cereals is of 1% (Anon 2001). The capacity of wheat
threshers increased multifold when equipped with belt feeding system. Therefore, a thresher
with conveyor belt type mechanical feeding system was developed in the department. There
were some limitations in this system. To improvise these limitations, threshers with
improvised conveyor belt type mechanical feeding system and feeder chain type mechanical
feeding system were developed. This study was conducted to evaluate performance of these
threshers at the departmental farm during Nov-Dec, 2015. After preliminary testing of feeder
chain type thresher, its performance evaluation was studied on PR-124 to ascertain the effect
of cylinder speed (12.27, 14.44 and 16.61 m/s), conveyor speed (2.52, 2.96 and 3.4 m/s) and
feed rate (4.08, 4.8 and 5.52 t/h). The threshing efficiency, non-collectable loss, broken grain,
cleaning efficiency, sieve overflow and torque were 98.90%, 0.55%, 0.23%, 98.44%, 0.38%
and 336.3 Nm respectively at the best combination of cylinder speed, feed rate and conveyor
speed of 16.61 m/s, 5.52 t/h and 2.52 m/s respectively. Similarly, the performance of
conveyor belt type thresher was studied to ascertain the effect of cylinder speed (12.01, 14.13
and 16.24 m/s), conveyor speed (2.71, 3.19 and 3.66 m/s) and feed rate (5.1, 6.0 and 6.9 t/h).
The threshing efficiency, non-collectable loss, broken grain, cleaning efficiency, sieve
overflow and torque was 99.08%, 0.52%, 0.34%, 97.96%, 0.40% and 354.8 Nm respectively
at the best combination of cylinder speed, feed rate and conveyor speed of 16.24 m/s, 6.9 t/h
and 2.71 m/s respectively.
Description
Keywords
threshers, Computer Science and Engineering, paddy thresher, Axial flow thresher, conveyors