Design and construction of a dry sweet potato miller.

Abstract

Uganda is one of the largest producer of sweet potato (ipomoea batatas) in Africa with an annual average output of nearly 2 million. Scott F., (1999). The high outputs enjoyed from the productive lands have not however translated into good living conditions for the eastern Ugandan residents as their products fetch little in terms of market price the farmers get. Farmers have the option of adding value to their sweet potatoes to fetch optimal prices; which have been advocated in the eastern Ugandan districts by many non- governmental organizations. This study therefore established one of the ways of adding value techniques to sweet potatoes and also adding on its shelf life. Processing of sweet potato into flour is perhaps the most satisfactory method of creating a product that is not only functionally adequate, but also remain for an extended period without spoilage and in long run value addition to sweet potatoes therefore the design and construction of a dry sweet potato miller. For production of the final design of a dry sweet potato miller, the following steps were considered; laying out an intervention strategy for the problem, literature reviewing was carried out to find out on some sweet potato characteristics , making possible designs for the prototype, selection of the best design, components designing, material selection for each component: These materials were also selected basing on their applicability, availability, ease of fabrication and cost; economic analysis, fabrication of the components, machine assembling, testing, analysis of the results and discussions on the findings were done. Finally, conclusions and recommendations were done on what the machine was able to accomplish then some major recommendations for the effective performance of the machine were also made. Then the appendix was included having tables and pictures showing what transpired during the construction and fabrication of the millers.