Agricultural Research Management Information System

Home
Research Summary
Search
About Us
- ARMIS
- Brochure
Contact Us
Report
User Request
Data Input
Help
- Operation Manual
  - PDF
  - Video
- Program Area & Commodity
We have reached 37600 number of research entries at this moment.

- Logout

Research Detail

Home
Research
Detail

Development of a Power Operated Sunflower Thresher (2017 - 2018)

M A Hoque,
Farm Machinery and postharvest Processing Engineering Division

M Z Hossain
Farm Machinery and postharvest Processing Engineering Division

Abstract/ Executive Summary:

A study was conducted for solving the problem faced by the farmers in separating the seeds from the sunflower. Farmers use the manual methods due to unavailability of suitable machinery for sunflower threshing. In the production process of sunflower, the most time and labor consuming operation is the threshing of sunflower by beating the sunflower heads with a stick, rubbing heads against a rough metal surface or power tiller treading machine. The aim of this experiment is to design and develop a power operated machine which will separate the seeds from the sunflower requiring less time and labour. An orthographic projection of the machine was drawn with SolidWorks 2016 Software. The sunflower thresher was then fabricated according to drawing in FMPE Divisional workshop as per design with available local materials during 2017-18. The main components required to fabricate the machine were: the electric motor, the pressing roller, the sieve, pulleys and belts and the fan. The space between pressing roller and sieve was adjustable that automatically changed due to spring action. The pressing roller separated grains from the head of the harvested sunflower. Two to three heads could be fed at a time. The capacity of the power operated sunflower thresher was 106 kg/h which was 57% and 66% higher than pedal thresher and manual threshing, respectively. Unremoved sunflower seeds were 8.96% and broken seeds were 4.48%. Due to late fabrication, thresher could not be tested with winter sunflower and effect of variety and moisture content could not be analyzed. Thus, the experiment will be continued in the next year.

Keywords: Power operated, Sunflower, Thresher

Location:

Start Date: 00-00-2017

End Date: 00-00-2018

Program Area: Farm Mechanization

Commodity: Thresher, Sunflower

Objectives:

Objectives

To design and fabricate a power operated sunflower thresher
To test the performance of the sunflower thresher

Methodology:

A sunflower seed thresher was designed. In the design, parameters considered were, feed rate, power requirement, shaft speed and hopper capacity etc. Some previous designs were also studied. An orthographic projection of the designed machine was drawn with SolidWorks 2016 Software. The schematic views of the sunflower thresher. The sunflower seed thresher was then fabricated according to drawing in FMPE Divisional workshop as per design with available local materials during 2017–18. The most important parts of the thresher were: the motor, the pressing roller, the sieve, pulleys and belts and the fan. The space between pressing roller and sieve was adjustable which automatically changed due to spring action. The fabricated pressing roller separated grains from the head of the harvested sunflower. Two to three heads could be fed at a time. It is worth mentioning that due to late fabrication of the machine, winter maize could not be tested but later, summer maize was used for testing the machine.

The capacity of the machine was evaluated as the quantity of the sunflower head could be threshed to get seed within a recorded time. In this case 10 kg of sunflower was fed into the machine while the time to complete threshing was recorded. This was calculated using following equation

Where

C = Capacity of the machine
Q = Mass of a processed sunflower head
T = Time taken for processed

Broken seed
The percentage broken seed was determined during the threshing process. The broken seed was separated from the whole seed by handpicking immediately after the threshing process was completed.

Source of Information: Annual Research Report (2017 - 2018), Farm Machinery and postharvest Processing Engineering Division

Article Link (Online Journal):

Funding Source:

Budget:

Total Budget (Tk.) :

Achievement/Findings:

The power operated sunflower thresher was designed and developed for the farmers. The capacity of the power operated sunflower thresher was 106 kg/h which was 57% and 66% higher than pedal thresher and manual threshing, respectively. unremoved sunflower seed was 8.96% and broken seed was 4.48% which were much higher than the expected. Due to late fabrication, thresher could not be tested with winter sunflower and the effect of variety and moisture content could not be analyzed. Thus, the experiment will be continued in the next year.

Knowledge Management: Report/Proceedings