DEVELOPMENT OF MILLET SEPARATOR-GRADER FOR EFFECTIVE SEPARATION OF UNHULLED GRAINS FROM DEHULLED SMALL MILLET RICE GRAINS
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Date
2015-08-20
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UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES GKVK, BENGALURU
Abstract
Physical and engineering properties like moisture content, size, weight of thousand grains, bulk and true densities, porosity, specific gravity and frictional properties like angle of repose and static coefficient of friction were determined for unhulled and dehulled grains of four small millets namely, proso, kodo, foxtail and little millets. Separation-cum-grading performance of three existing cleaning equipments namely, destoner, air screen cleaner and specific gravity separator was evaluated to find their suitability for the selected small millets. A Small millet separator-grader was developed and tested for its separation-cum-grading performance for the above four small millet rice grains. The effects of four screen set combinations (S1, S2, S3 and S4) and five feed mixes (M1, M2, M3, M4 and M5) on cleaning efficiency, screen effectiveness, cleaning index and performance index of the developed equipment was studied. The cleaning efficiency was in the range of 97.05-98.20 per cent, screen effectiveness was 0.795-0.882, cleaning index was 0.817-0.895 and performance index was 0.77-0.867. For tested small millet rice grains, the performance of separator-grader was optimum when screen set combination S1 (Rd Φ2.0-Rd Φ1.5-Rd Φ1.0) and feed mix upto (90:10) were used. The cost of separation-cum-grading was in the range of ` 47.20-61.37 per quintal and the Cost : Benefit ratio was worked to be in the range of 1:1.62 – 1:2.11. The developed prototype was found to be suitable for effective separation of unhulled millet grains from dehulled small millet rice.
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