The Design, fabrication and performance evaluation of yam peeling machine

introduction, materials and methods, description of machine, machine operation, design calculations, performance evaluation, result and discussion.

Abstract

Yam peeling operation is an essential unit operation before further processing of the tuber into a wide variety of forms for consumption as food and increases the value of the processed food. The yam peeling machine developed for this purpose consists of an electric motor, gears, gear motor, cutting tool, head stock, tail stock, tool post and belt drive.  The dimension of the machine bed is 765 mm by 240 mm by 8 mm. The principle of operation of the machine is the principle of turning and a spring - loaded peeling tool during the peeling operation. The machine is manually fed with one tuber at a time. The machine was evaluated for performance and the peeling efficiency ranged between 77.1 and 84.8.0 % while the peeling loss ranged from 13.0 and 22.9 %. The peeling time ranged from 46.0 and 53.0 sec while the peeling rate ranged from 5.4 and 6.8 mm s^-1. The design capacity of machine was 78.22 kg of yam tuber per hour with an average efficiency of 81.2 %. The adoption of this yam peeling machine is expected to enhance timely processing of yam tubers, reduction of labour inputs, increase productivity and income of the local processors. The machine has minimal maintenance needs and easy to operate.