Design and Construction
F. Karimi; A. Fadavi
Abstract
The wild pistachio (Pistacia Atlantica Mutika) exists in 2.4 million hectares of Iranian forest. In spite of high nutritional and medical value of this fruit, its use and processing are still performed manually. The objectives of this research are to design, to construct and to evaluate the performance ...
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The wild pistachio (Pistacia Atlantica Mutika) exists in 2.4 million hectares of Iranian forest. In spite of high nutritional and medical value of this fruit, its use and processing are still performed manually. The objectives of this research are to design, to construct and to evaluate the performance of a pistachio hulling machine. The pistachio of Kerman province was chosen as the case of study. The mechanism of shelling was chosen based on the applied pressure force of two cylinders, driving and driven. The effects of input variables including revolution of driving cylinder (three levels), the gap between two cylinders (four levels) and moisture content (four levels) on the performance of machine (shelling efficiency, percentage of intact kernel, percentage of imperfective broken nut, percentage of dust, and percentage of unshelled nut) were analyzed. The results showed that the shelling efficiency decreases with increasing the gap of two cylinders and moisture content of wild pistachio. The maximum intact kernel was obtained at moisture content of 6.61 wb %. The best performance was observed with the following conditions: the cylinders’ gap of 0.48 mm, rotational speed of the driving cylinder of 25.84 rpm and moisture content of 4.31% w.b.
S. Kordi; A. Fadavi; M. Eskandari; M. Barari; M. Rafiee; A. Ashraf Mehrabi
Abstract
Mechanical properties of grain are influenced by various factors including soil nutrients and grain moisture content at harvest time. In order to reduce mechanical losses, the design of different processing operations should be performed based on the knowledge of factors influencing the mechanical properties. ...
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Mechanical properties of grain are influenced by various factors including soil nutrients and grain moisture content at harvest time. In order to reduce mechanical losses, the design of different processing operations should be performed based on the knowledge of factors influencing the mechanical properties. The effects of urea fertilization methods and grain moisture content at harvest time on mechanical properties of dried corn were investigated in a field experiment as a strip split plot with four replications based on randomized complete block design at Khorram Abad Agricultural Research Station in 2010. The investigated factors were urea fertilization methods (urea foliar application and urea side-dress application), grain moisture content at harvest time (20, 30 and 40%) and four corn hybrids (NS 640, Konsur 580, Jeta 600 and control SC 704). The moisture content of dried grains due to different absorption property of the treatments was about 7±1 percent. The results showed that the interaction of fertilization methods and hybrid was significant (P < 0.05) for grain toughness. However, the grain moisture content at harvest time had significant effect on all studied traits except on grain firmness. The highest maximum fracture force, displacement at the maximum rupture force, energy consumption at maximum force point, specific deformation, rupture power and toughness were obtained at 20% grain’s moisture content Also, the results showed that NS hybrid had the highest maximum rupture force (219 N), displacement at the maximum fracture force (0.37 mm), energy consumption at maximum force (42.51 mj), rupture power (3.89 . 10-3W) and toughness (0.33 mj mm-3).
