Design and Evaluation of a Palm Fruit Thresher

Aims: The high demand for palm oil as food and industrial raw material is on the increase and the traditional method cannot sustain the demand for the crop. Therefore, there is need for design and fabrication of a locally and affordable palm oil processing machine, hence, this project.

Methodology: A palm fruit thresher was designed, fabricated and evaluated at the Department of Agricultural Engineering, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso, Nigeria. The thresher. Comprises of hopper, threshing chamber, the drive mechanism, separation units and the discharge outlets. The machine was evaluated for effect of storage and sterilization time on the threshing efficiency. The storage time (1, 2, and 3 days) and sterilization time (30, 40, 50 and 60 minutes) were used to investigate the effect of these treatments on the machine threshing efficiency and throughput capacity.

Results: The palm thresher was designed, constructed and evaluated. The result of the experiment showed that the threshing efficiency and the throughput capacity increased from 87.0 to 93.0 % and 258.0 to 468.0 kg/hr. respectively, as the storage time increases from 1 to 3 days. The effect of sterilization time was also found to be significant on the throughput and shelling efficiency (p< 0.05). The shelling efficiency and the throughput capacity was found to increase from 58.3 to 92.2% and 517.1 to 769.3 kg/hr. respectively, as the sterilization time increased from 10 to 30 minutes.

Conclusion: The results of these experiments showed that palm fruit threshing can be mechanized using a locally fabricated machine.