Vol. 10, Issue 10 (2021)

Author(s):
Atul R Dange, RK Naik, AK Dave, Navneet Dhurve and Shambhu Singh

Abstract:
A detail survey was conducted in selected district namely Rajnandgaon, Kanker and Kondagaon of Chhattisgarh state, to study on dehusking and shelling of maize under existing machineries or practices. On the basis of survey there is need of a compact dehusking cum shelling unit. A small portable single phase electric operated dehusker cum sheller was design and developed at SVCAET & RS with the help of M/s Punjab Agriculture Engineering, Dhamtari in year 2017-18. The portable medium size (600 kg/h capacity) electric motor (2.24 kW) operated Maize Dehusker cum Sheller was designed to resolve the issue by considering engineering properties of maize. The rectangular shaped machine having overall dimension length (610 mm), width (390 mm) and height (650 mm) made off up 35×35×5 mm angle iron. The selected operational parameters viz, cylinder peripheral speed (9 m/s), concave clearance (25 mm) and feed rate (600 kg/h) were studied for machine-performance and seed-quality parameters. The performance of machine under these parameters show the maximum dehusking was observed 99.00% with zero stalk cutting length at 10.63% moisture content, whereas 98.98% was found out at 1.91 m/s roller speed and at 800 kg/h feed rate. The minimum blower loss (1.37%) was obtained with roller speed (1.7 m/s) and at a feed rate of 600 kg/h. The maximum shelling efficiency (>98.86%) was obtained at cylinder speed of 7.35 m/s and feed rate of 800 kg/h at 14.12% moisture content. The minimum broken loss (0.63%) was obtained at 6.62 m/s cylinder speed and 12.14% moisture content. The minimum unshelled grain percentage was found as 1.04 at 6.62 m/s at 12.14%, cylinder speed and moisture content respectively. The seed germination percentage was found in the range of 91.12 to 95.79% for the developed maize dehusker Sheller. Overall machine performance was found satisfactory for maize dehusking cum shelling operation as well as to produce the maize grains for seeding purpose.