Design & construction of a cassava peeling machine.

Abstract

Cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) is one of the most common economic and productive root crops grown in tropical countries. Cassava, introduced in Uganda between 1862 and 1875, is currently one of the most important staple food crops in the country. Approximately 3.5 million tonnes have been produced from 0.4 million ha of land. The crop is grown in mixtures of legumes and cereals in small plots of land as stated by NAARI. In Uganda, the districts that are leading producers of cassava include; Lira, Apac, Gulu, Arua, Nebbi, Soroti, Kumi, Tororo and Iganga. Manual peeling is tiresome and full of drudgery. Cassava peeling has been mechanized, however, most of the existing cassava peeling machines are batch type with high retention time thus reducing capacity. Therefore, a cassava peeling machine with a continuous mechanism was constructed. It utilized a concave shaped mild steel plate with knife edges cut into it to form knife edges. The cassava peeling machine was successfully constructed and tested for performance at 200, 300, 400, 500 rpm using different diameter ranges. It had an average output of 196.5 kg/hr and an average efficiency of 61.8%. It’s payback period was 9months with a Net Present Value of 4,471,800/=.