Design and construction of a manually operated Sweet potato chipper.

Abstract

In Uganda, Sweet potato plays major role food security. It is-grown as subsistence crop and as-a cash- crop. About 44% of Ugandan farmers grow Sweet potatoes, the major production area is the Eastern region md lowest in the semi-arid Northern region, The harvesting, and post-harvest activities of' sweet potatoes have remained go labour intensive that they are limiting production at the house hold level especially in the chipping at' sweet potatoes, farmers still use. the traditional method of -hand-chipping This method is time. wasting, energy sapping and produces. low output of chipped sweet potatoes, injuries and contamination. due to prolonged. handling by human hands. overcome this problem, this study chase as its main objective to design and construct a- rnanuaully operated sweet potato chipper, Various components of the sweet potato chipper were designed using basic engineering principles and some physical properties of sweet potato such as size, density, hardness, sheaf strength moisture -content: (7.0%), angle of repose (37 ) and (weight. of the tuber. The machine was tested and the chipping rate was 82 kg/hr. with chipping efficiency of' 84.2.i¼ (he pedal system a chipping. rate of 55 kg/hr, with efficiency of 71 .6 % for the crank' lever system were obtained The results were relatively high- as compared to traditional methods. The cost-bene analysis of the prototype carried out and payback period was calculated and obtained as 66 days.