DEVELOPMENT OF FEEDING MECHANISM AND PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF GHERKIN GRADER
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Date
2022-08-18
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guntur
Abstract
Gherkins belonging to cucurbit family has huge demand in the world trade market. About 2.12 lakh MT of gherkins and cucumbers are majorly exported to European countries. The southern part of India cultivates gherkins, 3 seasons per year under contract farming by more than 1,00,000 small and marginal farmers. The local processing companies support and prescribe the entire gamut of activities in the cultivation practices. But the main hindrance in the production of gherkins is the grading of produce at farm level. Still grading of gherkins is done manually using different sizes of sieves which is labour oriented, tedious and time consuming. Grading of gherkins plays an important role as the value of gherkins depends upon the size (width) of the fruit. As the size of the fruit increases the market value of gherkins decreases. The common grades of gherkins are grade 1: 18.5 to 25 mm and grade 4: > 25 mm according to the width preffered for export.
Several researchers have developed mechanical graders based on the sieving principle which results in more damage to the gherkins. In view this, a power-operated gherkin grader based on the divergent rope principle causing negligible damage to the gherkins was developed at Dr. NTR CAE Bapatla. But in this machine, feeding was done manually, directly on the feeding chute. Manual feeding in bulk resulted in clogging at the grading unit affecting the grading efficiency of gherkins.
In order to overcome clogging of gherkin on the grading unit due to bulk feeding, a feeding mechanism was designed, developed and evaluated. The developed feeding unit consists of a feed hopper, feed conveyor and oscillating unit which were developed based on the physical and engineering properties of gherkins. The feed hopper was designed in such a way that the bulk volume of gherkins are fed into the conveyor without clogging which further reaches the oscillating unit. Due to the reciprocating motion and corrugation of the guiding plate of the oscillating unit gherkins are aligned parallel to the diverging grading ropes. Diverging grading ropes assist the gherkins to drop as per their width at their respective collection unit.
To evaluate the performance of the feeding mechanism, the parameters such as feed conveyor speed (12.9, 16.1, 19.3 and 22.5 m min-1), oscillating unit slope (0, 5, 10 and 15°), PU rope speed (10, 12.5, 15 and 17.5 m min-1) and PU rope slope (0,1.5 and 3°) were considered. Among these parameters, the best combination was at a feed conveyor speed of 19.3 m min-1, Oscillating unit slope of 15°, PU rope speed of 12.5 m min-1 and PU rope slope of 0°. Grading efficiency for grade 1, 2, 3 and 4 was determined to be 81.79 to 85.23%, 78.51 to 83.07%, 83.77 to 87.12% and 95.26 to 98.41% respectively. The cost of the gherkin grader with a newly developed feeding mechanism was determined to be Rs. 87,500/-. The cost of operation with a developed feeding mechanism was found to be Rs. 153 t-1 and Rs. 92 h-1 which resulted in money saving of 38.84% and time saving of 58.33%.
Keywords: Gherkins; Feeding Mechanism; Performance Evaluation; Cost Economics
Description
DEVELOPMENT OF FEEDING MECHANISM AND PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF GHERKIN GRADER