PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF A DOUBLE ACTION SELF-FED CASSAVA PEELING MACHINE ADAPTED FOR YAM PEELING

Authors : John Isa, Olawalw Olukunle

Pages : 98-105

View : 13 | Download : 9

Publication Date : 2021-09-30

Article Type : Research

Abstract :In West Africa, yam is an important tuber crop owing to its enormous uses. Quite often, yam is manually peeled, thus leading to drudgery and time consumption. To this end, a Double Action Self-fed (DASF) Cassava Peeling Machine developed at the Federal University of Technology, Akure, Nigeria was adapted for yam peeling. The performance of the machine was evaluated using five different yam varieties: Danisha, Loko, Aro, Shagari, and Egumo under various crop and operational variables such as moisture content of the yam tuber, tuber size, time of peeling and three operating auger-brush speed ratios of the machine. Five replicates of the experimental results were tested using statistical analysis and multiple linear regression models were developed to predict the relationship between the variables and the machine performance parameters. The DASF peeler has a peeling capacity of 920 kg/hr. The performance evaluation showed that peeling efficiency, material recovery and tuber loss were significantly affected by the auger-brush speeds and tuber size.
Keywords : Yam Peeling, Auger-brush speed, Tuber Loss, Material Recovery, Peeling Efficiency.