Vol. 9, Issue 9 (2020)

Author(s):
Mohini M Dange

Abstract:
Considering the huge amount of human energy involved in grading of fruits and thereby degrading the quality by handling the fruits number of times the PDKV spherical fruit grader is fabricated utilizing four pairs of PVC pipes and the diverging gaps between each pair of pipes. The grader is tested for grading Nagpur oranges, guava, onion and kagzi lime. The parameters viz. slope and feed rate were optimized for optimum grading the grading efficiency for all the fruits was observed to be 73-90% and the capacity was observed to be 10-12 tonnes /day. The unit was found techno economically feasible with BEP 44%. The unit is suitable for rural entrepreneurship development.