Journal of Taiwan Agricultural Research

Author:Lung-Ru Lu, Jyh-Rong Tsay*, Wu-Ruann Shyu, Lien-Sheng Liang and Yee-Ting Wang

Abstract:

    To solve the time-consuming, labor-intensive problem of detaching fruits from stalks, a snapping and screening machine for Cordia Dichotoma was designed and manufactured to reduce the labor requirement and production cost. The machine was made of a pair of longitudinal brush rollers, a pair of feeding belts, a screening device, a water pipe system and a fruits-collecting chute. A better combination of settings for snapping operation includes a rotating speed of snapping roller at 107 rpm, a rotating speed of feeding pulley at 23 rpm, a brush length of 20 mm, and a brush overlap length of 3 mm. The Operating performance of developed snapping machine was determined to be with an acceptable rate of 92.7%, an unstriped rate of 3.2% and a miscellaneous rate of 4.1%. Attached screening device, manufactured by using a bar-chain conveyor with a mesh size of 1616 mm, was proved to achieve the design goal. Overall operating capability (9.1 kg/hr) of the snapping and screening machine is about 2.4 (5.9) times as that of a professional (amateur) worker.

Key words:Cordia dichotoma, Snapping and screening machine

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