Design and construction of a pedalled pineapple peeler, slicer and corer.

Abstract

This project report is written to the department of chemical and process engineering as a partial requirement for an, award of a bachelor’s of science in agro-processing engineering and the project was estimated at a cost of about USD 268. The money was used to obtain-the main objective. of the project which was to design and construct a low cost pedalled pineapple fruit peeler, slicer and corer. This main objective was systematically achieved through the following specific objectives, that is; to design the: pineapple peeler, slicer and corer, to fabricate the machine parts of the to test the performance of the machine and to cost evaluate the pineapple peeler, slicer and corer. The project approximately took One year to have it completed and then implemented and involved consultations from the experts as regards -the proposed machinery. The machine was successfully designed, constructed and tested and had an efficiency of 66.67%. The need for this project was to provide easy to use machinery for the upcoming entrepreneurs of Uganda since many of the pineapples are actually sold to the local market at low prices and the rest facing are risk of perishing due to the poor preservation facilities and hence heavy losses. The interested parties include the entrepreneurs and the farmers, all these are anxious to achieve the desired Outputs and impacts that the machine provided. The entrepreneurs will actually have their Work simplified especially the unit operations involved in pineapple processing while the farmers will have their pineapples bought in time since a regular demand for the material is expected to rise, because of the machinery. The project also. takes into consideration the consumers who will enjoy a quality product as either sliced pineapple or as juice. The project will benefit the communities around since employment opportunities shall be created and an increased- flow of income within homesteads. As a result, the impact on the community is expected to be significant and the agricultural sector is expected to be boosted up. This project builds on previous work done by Bamuleseyo Deborah, Busitema University who designed and constructed a pineapple Peeler-cum-ring-slicer for domestic use and considerations have been taken to increase the output of her machine.