Abstract:
Tropical almond (Terminalia catappa) is an underutilized crop that
belongs to Combretacea family. This plant has been identified as an
important medicinal plant owing to its antioxidant and therapeutic
properties against cancer and diabetes as proven in numerous
pharmacological studies. In its processing, the adoption of manual
cracking method results in damages of nuts with high risk of injuries to
workers. Therefore, the aim of this study was to design, develop and
evaluate a motorized tropical almond nut-cracking machine to minimize
the damages on nuts. Major components of the machine are an electric
motor as the power source, conveyor belt, fruit holders and impact
hammer. Power is transmitted to the crankshaft from the electric motor
by means of a belt and pulleys. The rotating crankshaft moves the
hammer up and down to apply an impact on the fruit while the belt
conveyor feeds fruits towards the hammer. After shattering, the nuts
are separated from the shells through oscillatory action. At the
performance evaluation of the machine, it was realized that damages
caused to fruits and the operator were negligible. The machine weighs
62.5 kg and the total production cost of the machine was 65,000.00
LKR. Actual capacities of manual and mechanical cracking were 184
and 285 nuts/hr, respectively, while theoretical capacities were 225 and
327 nuts/hr, respectively. The comparative figures of the manual and
mechanical cracking for field efficiencies were 82% and 87%,
respectively. Therefore, this mechanical nut-cracking device could be
recommended to replace laborious manual method of nut-cracking for
tropical almond (Kottamba).
