Design and development of garlic (Allium sativum) stalk cutter machine
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Date
2019
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CCSHAU
Abstract
Garlic (Allium sativum) is a bulbous plant and perennial plant of amaryllis family (Amaryllidaceous). De-topping or cutting stalk is the primary unit operation for making the product marketable. Most of the de-topping is being done manually which not only time-consuming also adds cost. So in order to make the unit operation cost-effective and efficient a garlic stalk cutter machine was designed, developed and its performance was studied. In this study effect of operational parameters i.e. moisture content (14, 21, 28, 35, 42) % and feed rate (no of stalk-2, 3, 4, 5, 6) on dependent parameters such as capacity (kg/h), grading efficiency (%), bulb damaged (%), bulb dropped (%), plant spilled (%) and uncut stalk (%) were studied within the experimental region. Garlic variety GS17 was used during experiment. After complete evaluation and analysis of all attributes it was found that the best result was at a moisture content of 28% and feed rate of 4 stalks which resulted in a capacity of 177.62 kg/h with a grading efficiency of 91.4% and damaged bulb , bulb dropped , plant spilled , uncut stalk to be 2.63%, 2.30%, 1.32%, 3.68% respectively. After the optimization of parameters of the machine using RSM the result was found that on using feed rate 3.79 stalks at a time and moisture content of 29.012% resulted the capacity of machine and grading efficiency i.e. 174.2 kg/h., 90.87% respectively and the bulb damage, bulb dropped, plant spilled, uncut stalk i.e. 2.56%, 2.17%, 1.25%, 3.47% respectively.
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