Design and construction of a small scale maize huller.

Abstract

Uganda's economy is largely agro-based and with the developing technology it has to meet the needs of the farmers. Uganda has merged to be one of the largest maize producing countries in East Africa and posho or corn meal being one of the staple foods to many regions of the country and maize is one of the most important food crop grown annually around the world and most of it is consumed as processed flour. In Uganda, the local farmers still consume flour that is milled from whole maize grains due to limited hulling machines. The view available maize hullers are on a stand-alone mechanism and this method is tiresome, time consuming, labour intensive, gives less output and involves a high risk of cross-contamination of the hulled grits due to contact with the human body. And some maize hulling machines which exist are expensive which most local processors do not afford hence limiting the production outputs of improved corn flour. Thus, there is a need of a maize huller that saves time, reduce drudgery, and contamination levels while hulling maize due to the increasing demand for the hygienic corn flour by various consumers in Uganda. Therefore, the objective of this study was to design and construct a continuous flow maize huller for small scale maize millers which could therefore help people to hull maize without cross contaminating and enhance the safety of the prime product. Design and construction of the various components of the maize huller was carried out by analyzing forces acting on them so that components don't fail during operation. Force analysis led to selection of proper materials to withstand the forces to avoid failure. Engineering drawings of the various components of the huller were designed and drawn before the various components were constructed. Then machine assembly was done last according to the engineering drawings and the performance of the machine was tested. In summary, this prototype development of a continuous flow maize huller machine, if implemented, will provide a great remedy to the challenges faced during local hulling processes of maize in various parts of Uganda.