Design And Fabrication Of A Portable Cassava Grater

ABSTRACT

There is need for a hygienic processing of cassava. Prevalent condition in the commercial grating area of this staple food shows a susceptibility of food contamination. This project addresses the need for the development of a home scale cassava grater where the materials, the tuber s of cassava being grated can be properly monitored.

          Some design considerations used in this project are; the machine should be efficient during use in the household as well as moveable (portable) and Safety or easily operated. Another problem considerations is that cassava Produces a large amount of cyanogenic glycosides so in selecting materials, for construction adequate care must be taken not to use materials that cannot degrade /corrode easily due to the acidic content in cassava. The malice component which is made from mild steel which consist of major parts namely, the mainframe which is constructed with angle iron which gives strength and rigidity  o the war all matins, the hopper/s receptacle through which cassava is admitted into the machine for grating, the grating unit consist of the shaft, perforated  mesh  rolled sheet, circular disc and rival pins, the discharge unit   which direct the flow of the grated cassava to astrrage   pit or receptacle, and the electric  motor which is made from cast iron and winding horse power of the machine . The capacity of the grater fabricated was 158kg/hr. the unit cost is #62,100 as against the #75,000 for the current grating unit in the market.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Title Page                                                                                                    i

Certification                                                                                                         ii

Dedication                                                                                                  iii

Acknowledgement                                                                                                iv

Abstract                                                                                                      v

Table of Contents                                                                                       vi

List of Table                                                                                               x

List of Figures                                                                                            xii

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

• Introduction 1

1.1Varieties          of Cassava                                                                               1

1.2 Importance of Cassava                                                                         2

1.3 Uses of Cassava                                                                                   3

1.4 Methods of peeling Cassava                                                                          4

1.4.1 Manual Method                                                                                 5

1.4.2 Chemical Method                                                                              5

1.4.3 Steaming Method                                                                              6

1.4.4 Mechanical Method                                                                                     6

1.5 Justification of the Study                                                                      7

1.6 Aim and Objectives                                                                              8

1.6.1 Objective                                                                                           8

1.7 Scope of study                                                                                               8

CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW

• Literature Review 10

2.1 Background to the study                                                                      10

2.2 Economic Importance of cassava product                                            14

2.3 Steps or Procedures for Cassava Processing                                        15

2.3.1 Peeling                                                                                               16

2.3.2 Washing                                                                                            17

2.3.3 Grating                                                                                              17

2.3.4  Dewatering/Dehydration                                                                            18

2.3.5  Fermentation                                                                                     18

2.3.6  Frying                                                                                               18

2.3.7  Sieving                                                                                              19

2.4     Types of Cassava                                                                             19

2.4.1  Manual Grater                                                                                  20

2.4.2  Mechanical Grater                                                                                      21

2.5     Factors Affecting Grating Performance                                             23

2.5.1  Capacity of Grater                                                                                      23

2.5.2  The Rate of Grating                                                                          23

2.5.3  Rough of the Grater Surface                                                             24

2.5.4  Moisture of Cassava Tuber                                                               24

CHAPTER THREE: MATERIALS AND METHODS

3.0  MATERIALS AND METHOD                                                           26

3.1  Materials                                                                                             26

3.1.1  Mild Steel                                                                                          26

3.1.2  Stainless Steel                                                                                   27

3.1.3  Alloy Rubber                                                                                    28

3.1.4  Cast Iron                                                                                           29

3.2  Description of Machine Parts                                                                      31

3.2.1  The Main Frame                                                                                       31

3.2.2  The Hopper                                                                                                31

3.2.3  The Grating Unit                                                                               31

3.2.4  Electric Motor and Pulley System                                                     32

3.2.5  The Discharge Unit                                                                           32

3.3     Project Methodology                                                                         32

3.3.1  Machineries and Machining Processes                                                        32

CHAPTER FOUR:

DESCRIPTION OF THE MACHINE AND ITS MAJOR COMPONENTS

4.0  Description of The Machine and its Major Components                     35

4.1  Cassava Grating Drawing                                                                             35

4.2  Shaft Design                                                                                        40

4.3  Determination of the Bending Moment of each point of loading                   41

4.3.1  Force Exerted on Shaft                                                                     42

4.3.2  Reactions at the Bearings due to Vertical Loading                                     44

4.3.3  Reactions at the Bearings due to Horizontal Loading                       46

4.3.4  Speed Transmission                                                                          48

4.3.5  Power Transmission                                                                         49

4.3.6  Belt Design                                                                                       50

4.3.7  Determine of Centre Distance                                                           50

4.3.8  Length of Belt                                                                                   51

4.3.9  Angle of Contact on Driver Belt Sheave                                           51

4.4     Performance Evaluation                                                                    52

CHAPTER FIVE:

5.0     CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION                                       58

5.1     Conclusion                                                                                        58

5.2     Recommendation                                                                              58

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Materials used in the constructing of cassava grater                     30

Table 2: Indicating the number of loading and time taken for each

loading in order to evaluate performance of existing Machine     53

Table 3: Indicating the number of loading and time taken for each

loading in order to evaluate performance of existing machine               54

Table 4: Comparison of the commercial and fabricated grater                             55

Table 5: bill of engineering materials and evaluation                                  57

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Isometric Drawing                                                                       37

Figure 2: Front View Elevation                                                                            38

Figure 3: AutoCAD Drawing                                                                     39

Figure 4: Grafting Drum                                                                                      40

Figure 4: Shaft Bending Moment Determination                                        41

CHAPTER ONE

1.0     INTRODUCTION

Human generation need recipe of various varieties to get energy to perform their daily activities and also to survive, then there is need for consumption of energy giving food like yam, cassava. Cassava is originated from latin America and was later introduced to Asia in the 17^th century and to Africa in about 1558, in Nigeria, cassava is mostly plant by subsistence farmers, usually intercropped with vegetables, plantation crop, yam, sweet potatoes, melon,beans, and maize etc. Cassava is propagated by 20-30cm long cutting of the tree stem, space between plants is usually 1-1.5m. Intercropping with beans, maize, and other annual crops is produced in young cassava plantations.

• Varieties of Cassava

Cassava is classified as either sweet or bitter, like other roots and tubers, both bitter and sweet varieties of cassava contain auto nutritional factors and toxins with the bitter varieties containing much larger amounts. They must be properly prepared before consumption, as improper preparation of cassava can leave enough residual cyanide to cause acute cyanide intoxication, goiters, and even ataxia or partial paralysis, (Fao, 2001)

The more toxic varieties of cassava are a fall-back resource (a “food security crop”) in times of famine in some places. Farmers often prefer the bitter varieties because they defer pests, animals and thieves.

1.2     Importance of Cassava

No continent depends as much on root and tuber crops in feeding its population as does as Africa. Cassava, yams and sweet potatoes is an important source of food in the tropics. The importance of cassava to many Africans is epitomized in its name for the plant, e.g ege, paki, agble. The production rate world-wide is positive for cassava over the last years, and the production increase by 12.5% between 1988 and 1990 with Nigeria becoming the largest cassava producer in the world. (Bamiro, 2006)

Cassava and yams also occupy an important position in Ghana,niger republic, Benin republic,Cameron agricultural economy and contribute about 46% of the agricultural Gross Domestic product (GDP). Cassava accounts for a daily intake of 30% in Ghana and is grown by meanly every farmer’s family. Cassava is the most favoured among all Tuber crops and even all food crops by Ghanaian consumers. ( Bamiro, 2007 )

1.3     Uses of Cassava

Cassava is a staple crop and food source for millions of people in Nigeria, Ghana and other parts of Africa. It has many uses in addition to producing nutrition to humans. The leaves can be eaten as a vegetable or cooked as a soup. They can also be dried as hay and given as feed stuff to animals for extra protein.

The tubers can be processed into many things

1. Cassava can be processed into flour. The flour can be used to produce most of our local food and even foreign food.
2. Cassava can be processed into chips. Cassava chips can be used for animal feed.

• Cassava can be processed into ethanol. The ethanol produced from cassava can be used as bio-fuel when combined with additives.

1. Cassava can be processed into fructose. Fructose is used in industry for sweetening fizzy drinks.
2. Cassava can be processed into starch. The starch can be used in textiles industry.

Cassava is usually grown for human consumption. Fufu is a traditional way to consume cassava. There are 14 steps to the process making fufu including peeling grating and washing so its time consuming and labour consuming. Garri is another traditional way of eating cassava. The cassava is grated and put into porous sacks for the water to drain out and for the cassava to ferment slightly.Amala is another way of consuming cassava which includes fermentation,drying,grinding and sieving processes . Cassava flour has been turned into variety of snack foods. You can purchase cassava snack that are promoted as “healthy snacking” in the UK in a variety of flours.

1.4     Method of Peeling Cassava

There are several methods of peeling cassava, which have been adopted. They include manual, chemical, steaming and mechanical methods. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages

1.4.1  Manual Method

The manual method of peeling cassava is primitive and cumbersome. It’s unhygienic, time wasting and requires more time of producing small quantities. Also, it’s carried out by hand peeling of cassava using a sharp edged object like knife.

Advantages of manual peeling

1. It require no money
2. No chemical involved which may lead to poison when react with tuber

Disadvantages  of manual peeling

1. So cumbersome and slow
2. Doesn’t encourage peeling of large quantity.

1.4.2  Chemical Method

Chemical method is often adopted in the industries, factories and food processing companies. It involves chemical actions and thermal shock which leads to weaken and loosening of the skin using caustic soda (NaOH).

The disadvantages of this method of peeling cassava include;

• Cost of acquiring caustic soda.
• The difficulty in controlling the penetration of chemical in the cassava tuber.
• The difficulty in the removal of chemical traces as it may be poisonous.

Advantages

• it is easy and encourage large quantity peeling
• it required little human effort.

1.4.3    Steaming Method

The tubers are subjected to high steam pressure over a short period of time to avoid partial cooking (or eventual cooking). The disadvantage is that the tubers could be subjected beyond the time.

1.4.4   Mechanical Method

This includes mechanized means of peeling, aimed at peeling a large number or a batch at a time. Many mechanisms have been devised for this purpose, this includes the continue process, abrasive belt conveyors and batch abrasion types among others.

These methods of peeling have not been yielded the desired results. Hence, the continued research in this area. An extensive literature research was conducted to determine the state of the art in cassava processing.   

1.5     Justification of Study

Presently in Nigeria, the products of cassava are usually locally consumed and exportation is low due to reason that the products do not always meet the international standards for healthy foods. Thus, the need to encourage the small scale(home production) of cassava product to ensure quality of products and good hygienic values.

From the research carry out, it was discovered that most of the cassava graters machines in the research area are usually corroding (reducing service life) due to the acidic nature of the cassava fluid and materials used for the fabrication. To ensure all cassava products is free from any taste, odour, or infected by iron content of parts (food poisoning) which may affect the quality of their contents (Giews, 2001) hence need to modify the design and use appropriate materials for fabrication.

Now, the government has also started campaign for production of bread using cassava flour to reduce more concentration on wheat.

1.6     Aim and objectives

The sole aim of this project is to design and fabricate improved cassava grating machine.

1.6.1  Objectives:The objectives of this project are as follow:

1. To modify the design of the existing cassava grater (dimensions) to the home use-small scale sizes.
2. Ensuring proper grinding performance thereby eliminating vibrating shifter/sieving since the cassava products can be re-grinded to finer particles after pressing and frying to ensure no wastage.

• To save time and cost of processing cassava products by the average family.

1.7     Scope of study

The scope of the project is to design and fabricate a viable motorized cassava grater which would be useful for home-use, retailers and small scale farmers and ;

1. To obtain some data or information that will be required and that are suitable in the design and fabrication of cassava grater.
2. To select suitable materials based on the result of the analysis for the fabrication of the machine.

• To prepare a neat and detailed working drawing for the fabrication process.

CHAPTER FIVE

5.0     CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION

5.1     Conclusion

The portable cassava grating machine was designed, fabricated and tested. It was found to be effective and efficient and could grate about 158.9kg/hr.

This machine can be used at home-scale for domestic applications and it is affordable since the cost of production is within the minimum range cost which will reduce during large scale production.

Based on the construction materials and selection of quality of fabrication work, the machine is durable and expected to last for at least 10years.

5.2     Recommendations

• I recommended that the machine should be produced in large number for small-scaled use (commercialization).
• The efficiency, design mechanism (in terms of grating unit), and speed at which the machine operates can be improved upon in the future.
• The above can be done hand in hand with weight reduction while maintaining balance reducing machine vibrations.
• The government and individual people should stand and encourage technician to contribute more to our society