Design, development and evaluation of a rotary potato sorting machine

Abstract

Potato is one of the most important agricultural products that has great nutritional and industrial value. Potato seed tubers are usually used for growing this crop, but separating the seed tubers from the edible ones is tedious, time consuming and costly process. Therefore, a rotating potato sorting machine was designed, developed and evaluated in this research. This machine was able to sort potato tubers according to their size. Effects of sieves slope angle and rotational speed on the tubers mechanical damage, sorting accuracy and capacity of designed machine were evaluated. The test was conducted in the factorial experiment format with three replications based on a completely randomized experimental design. Three levels of sieves slope angle (5, 10 and 15 degrees) and three levels of sieves rotational speed (10, 20 and 30 revolutions per minute (rpm)) were considered. Results showed that the treatment involving an inclination angle of 5 degrees and a rotational speed of 10 rpm was the most appropriate treatment. This machine consists of main units including: 1- Input unit, 2- Sorting unit, 3- Power transmission unit, 4- Electrical unit, 5- Output unit and 6- Chassis.